The Del Monte/Tim Lewis Communities contribution to the Sweeney Open Space Park is already paying dividends. A few days ago the City of Alameda issued a press release announcing the award of a dollar for dollar match. From the press release:
The California Department of Parks and Recreation announced a $2 million grant for the Jean Sweeney Open Space Park from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The LWCF program provides funding to public agencies for acquisition and development projects that create outdoor recreational resources. This year $6,142,673 was awarded to ten park projects state-wide. The Jean Sweeney Open Space Park grant is the largest award this year. The LWCF grant requires a 50% local match and through a development agreement for the Del Monte Building, Tim Lewis Communities provided $2 Million for Jean Sweeney Open Space Park that the City used as the required match. The City would not otherwise have had the matching funds to apply. The grant funding is pending final approval from the National Park Service which is anticipated soon.
Since the total cost of the project was estimated at $8 million this grant match funds the 50% of the project. More from the press release:
This 22-acre park includes open space natural areas and active uses such as picnic areas, playgrounds, a community garden, and walking and biking trails. This grant funds Phase 2 which is the most eastern portion of the park near Sherman Street. It includes a natural playground; a large group picnic area with a gazebo, picnic pavilion and open lawn; a plaza area; bicycle and walking trails; small picnic areas; and a natural open landscape area with California native, drought-tolerant plants.
And:
The park also includes the Cross-Alameda Trail as Phase 1. This bike/walk recreational and commuter trail is fully funded by the Active Transportation Program federal funds in the amount of $2.5 million. The design for the trail portion of the project is already underway. The funding secured for Jean Sweeney Open Space Park now totals $6.5 million.
This is a really exciting time for the West End, the Cross Alameda Trail is a much needed pedestrian and bicycle connection on RAMP. The Open Space park will bring, well, a park which no one ever thinks is a bad thing.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
This tract is on existing bus line, walkable to shopping, why wasn’t it set aside for multi-family structures for low/moderate income people? Enlightened people tell us every day that’s what we should want.
Comment by dave — July 15, 2015 @ 6:28 am
It’s designated open space via a city-wide vote. To overturn the open space zoning it would have to go through a public vote.
Comment by Lauren Do — July 15, 2015 @ 6:34 am
Good, at least we saved the Superfund Site off the bus line residences.
Comment by dave — July 15, 2015 @ 6:50 am
*for* residences, rather
Comment by dave — July 15, 2015 @ 6:55 am
Great news for the Jean Sweeney Open Space Park Per the city web-site, total funding for the park is now at $6.5M.
Comment by Karen Bey — July 15, 2015 @ 7:00 am
“Natural playground” “Open lawn?” “Community garden” – with well water? I thought brown was the new green…
Comment by Breathless — July 15, 2015 @ 7:36 am
Open lawns do not have to be green. Natural playground will be natural (i.e. mother nature will be respected there). The City and the ARPD Commission are every bit concerned citizens as anyone. They care about the environment, the conservation of water, and the safety of the people who will use the Sweeney Park. The design plans are all based on community input that was initiated in February 2013. Hundreds of citizens attended the two community meetings and/or commented via an online survey. The results (by priority) were as follows: Walking & Bike Trails (73.20%); Natural Open Space (54.90%); Picnic Areas (54.90%; Community Gardens (46.50%); Playground (43.90%); Open Lawn Areas (39.20%). The final construction of the park will accommodate all of these community requests. A formal Park Design Committee was also developed and has been responsible for working with the city in making sure all design adhere to the community input. The city was fortunate to have Kristopher Koster develop the park design models from the community init, which allowed city staff to present the objectives and plans in a very professional manner. His work was done pro-bono as well. This has been an 18 year process that will now begin to take shape. We have a top-notch city director in Amy Wooldridge leading the project and community involvement and support not seen in a very long time.
Comment by Bill2 — July 15, 2015 @ 8:41 am
“…community input, …” that is.
Comment by Bill2 — July 15, 2015 @ 8:43 am
I always support any Open Space that we can get.
Comment by frank m — July 15, 2015 @ 9:22 am
That’s too many parks along that area of Alameda. Littlejohn should be returned to what it was (a parking lot) to accommodate all the inhabitants of new Del Monte/ Tim Lewis monstrosity and keep them from clogging up all the neighborhood on-street parking.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 9:37 am
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry..
Comment by Gabrielle Dolphin — July 15, 2015 @ 12:09 pm
Gabrielle, I’m assuming jack is satire. The views are so cartoonish, it must all be a joke!
Comment by gaylon — July 15, 2015 @ 12:34 pm
You guys don’t live in the area.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 1:50 pm
12 Thanks for the straw to grasp … far too frickin’ naive here to dance in these circles :0)
Comment by Gabrielle Dolphin — July 15, 2015 @ 2:17 pm
take it easy guy’s, Jack is just anti-everything. post#7, Bill2, well said.
Comment by John P. senior liberal genius — July 15, 2015 @ 5:04 pm
JPSLG, surprising you’d say that. Here I am in favor of more parking off the street, support the Sweeney Open Space Park, and am advocating for a logical solution for the neighborhood problem of too many autos with too little space to put those autos at rest when not in use. You genuious’s want to eliminate the autos but that’s not going to happen except in Spangerville, and Spanglerville only exists in PROK.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 6:10 pm
16. autos will eventually be eliminated when the human species is extinct due to long term effects if climate change. Not to morrow or in my life time, but it’s coming. http://www.elizabethkolbert.com . Not Spanglerville, but a place called Earth.
Comment by MI — July 15, 2015 @ 6:28 pm
Why is Kolbert’s book called “An Unnatural History” unless it’s the figment of liberal/Marxists dreams with a death wish. Earth is a speck of nothing in a cosmos so vast it’s even bigger than your ego and will drift into nothingness once the Dolphin comes up for air and learns how to dance.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 6:42 pm
I like the sound of that , Spangerville maybe someday Alameda will be called Spangerville. When all cars have been banned and you can only ride bikes. What do ya think Jon??
Comment by John P. senior liberal genius — July 15, 2015 @ 6:53 pm
Hey, Mark, I tried to get you to take a trip with me to Cuba couple years ago but you couldn’t do it for whatever reason. Thing is, now that Obama has freed all the Cubans and the cruise ships are beginning to dock, Cuba’s no longer attractive to commies like us. So, I’ve been looking into alternative trips and came up with what is probably the very last country that meets our requirements. http://www.koryogroup.com/travel_furtherTravel_bTours.php
Probably can’t make it this year but if you’re interested we can start getting the visa questionnaires in order. I have a peculiar problem because the visa requires you state your occupation or if retired your previous occupation. Since I worked for the U.S. DOD in the Missile Repair program at the Base, I may have to snudge on my previous occupation. But please tell me if you’re interested.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 7:11 pm
That link is to China but I’m obviously speaking of North Korea. The tour begins and ends in Beijing so we can fly direct on China Air from SFO to Beijing and catch the tour from there.
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 7:17 pm
John P, you might be interested or anybody else???
Comment by jack — July 15, 2015 @ 7:18 pm
I don’t know Jack, do they any food in North Korea? Although it would be an education
Comment by John P. senior liberal genius — July 16, 2015 @ 6:58 am
19: John-senior-liberal-genius, I’d prefer Alameda. It’s shorter and (usually) easier to spell. If we’re going back to “villes,” let’s use Leonardville, which is at least an historic name…
Comment by Jon Spangler — July 16, 2015 @ 8:50 am
16, 19: You can find examples of what cyclists and others are advocating domestically in San Francisco, Davis, Portland, Eugene, and many other cities in which the stranglehold of autos-only design is being broken. Or look to Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Beijing (in 1960-1970, that is), and many other world cities. Many cities have successfully moved from autos-only transportation networks back to a more historic balance of transporting people more on transit, by bike, and on foot–*in addition to* people driving in cars.
Surely Jack would be willing to visit one or more of these cities to see these successes for himself? (You don’t even need a passport to visit Davis, California, and you can take your bike on the Capitol Corridor train.)
Comment by Jon Spangler — July 16, 2015 @ 9:08 am
climate sceoince has what to do with Marxism? a much more likely threat…..Commies From Mars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngqOmNWVke0
Comment by MI — July 16, 2015 @ 9:37 am
“science”
Comment by MI — July 16, 2015 @ 9:38 am
World cities: Interesting, Jon, you can cherry pick cities where you see bicycles and when I was in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Tainan, Saigon, Manila and many other Asian cities in the sixties the bicycles were so thick you could barely cross streets. Now almost fifty years later there are virtually no bicycles. They’ve all been replaced by motor powered scooters/ motorcycles/ automobiles and jeepneys (Philippines). Last time I was in Paris, London, Fez, Rabat, Madrid, Venice, Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Luxembourg, Pordenone, San Juan, Panama City, Cartagena, Rio de Janeiro, Busan, Nagasaki, Vladivostok et al, you could count the bicycles on one finger.
Comment by jack — July 16, 2015 @ 9:56 am
climate sceoince is the 21st century of the ‘one world government’ the Marxists failed to install after Stalin then Eleanor Roosevelt died.
Comment by jack — July 16, 2015 @ 10:13 am
here I go again, laughing and crying
Comment by Gabrielle Dolphin — July 16, 2015 @ 12:10 pm
Jack – I’ve come up for air and know how to dance…
Comment by Gabrielle Dolphin — July 16, 2015 @ 12:12 pm
Jack could rewrite the words to “I’ve Been Everywhere” (Johnny Cash) https://youtu.be/ov4epAJRPMw
Comment by vigi — July 16, 2015 @ 1:31 pm
Jon must not realize it but most of the world’s human inhabitants consider changing from a human powered conveyance to a conveyance powered by either someone or something else as a great leap upwards in status. It’s only after the wealth of a nation becomes such that the entire population can travel by non-human power that the status factor flips and traveling by human power becomes some sort of religious dogma by self-appointed high priests who consider anyone who doesn’t follow their lead as someone destroying their planet.
I suspect that by the time all the rest of the world has the universal ability to travel by non-human powered conveyances the status factor will flip again and Jon will switch from pedaling to walkingalking only.
Comment by jack — July 16, 2015 @ 3:27 pm
Jpslg 23
The tour’s name is the ‘kimshi’ tour so that should tell you something about the food.
Comment by jack — July 16, 2015 @ 7:01 pm
33: Jack,
All of the auto-crowded cities around the world are facing the same *negative* results of out massive fossil-fueled “great leap upwards in status”–air and water pollution, traffic congestion, unsafe streets, global climate change, huge health costs (asthma, emphysema, heart disease, obesity, etc.), and more.
Some cities–the ones I listed among them–are trying to lead the way back to a more sane use of transportation technologies and resources. (The “safety bicycle” is still among the most efficient locomotion technologies humans have ever developed over 150 years after its invention.)
If you think dealing with global climate change and other environmental problems by trying to reverse the damage done so far is a matter of “religious dogma,” you can worship that false idol. As for me, I’d just as soon try and save what’s left of the only planet we have, which could be accomplished if we are wiling to stop chasing the “false gods” of the “more is better” consumption model.
Comment by Jon Spangler — July 17, 2015 @ 9:49 am
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spangler
Comment by welcome to Spangler-ville — July 17, 2015 @ 10:17 am
Jon, you sound like self-satisfied imperialist. You know what’s best for the teeming multitudes around the world huddled around their charcoal burner hoping the fish heads and rice (not white) will sate their hunger needs for another day. You know, but they don’t, that you’d like to take their charcoal burner away from them because it’s harming the only planet you have. You know, but they don’t, that there’s no hope for them when they yearn for a little bit more than what their great, great grandparents had. You know, but they don’t, that you have solved your yearnings by taking away any hope they have for a better life for their kids.
Comment by jack — July 17, 2015 @ 5:34 pm