Brother gotta work it out

On Monday night the Planning Board (and public) got a first look at the Alameda Landing residential project.   The good thing about Monday night’s meeting was the Powerpoint from Tri Point — the developer — gave folks a better idea of what they had envisioned, the bad thing about Monday night’s meeting was the awful realization that the residential portion needs a lot more work, and perhaps a complete reworking of the entire plan.

Here is a much better site plan (including the retail portion) that was available on Monday night:

The houses are coming

On Thursday night I tweeted out about this update on the lawsuit filed by former Fire Chief Kapler against the City of Alameda:

On fmr Fire Chief Kapler case, appellate court rules in favor of City of #Alameda & awards attorneys fees http://t.co/42iWD8iD

— Lauren Do (@laurendo) September 7, 2012

I’ll tackle all the details tomorrow because it is a big deal, because tonight’s Planning Board agenda is super important.

First, a small update on the Historic Advisory Board meeting, for anyone that was wondering about the Historic Alameda High School fence, the HAB will be taking up the issue at their next meeting because the representative from the school district was not available to give an update last Thursday night  to the HAB, so if you are interested, keep an eye out for the next HAB meeting.

So, the Planning Board will get a first look at what the residential portions of Alameda Landing is supposed to look like.  And by first look I mean there will be no votes on the issue only that they will be able to make lots of comments on the Alameda Landing residential.  Here is the overall plan concept map:

Old gold Chevy and a place of my own

Tonight the Planning Board will be considering some large-ish development related items.   The big one, about Alameda Point, has been put on hold for the time being until the City Council meets on June 6 to give direction to staff on how to move forward.   Just as an aside, commenter Karen Bey makes a few excellent points that I wanted to call out here regarding Staff’s frustation over feeling discouraged by the discussion last Tuesday night and other misc issues that came up.

Russo’s claim is that there were three presentations and he and his staff were demoralized after having their strategy rejected by council, but this was the first presentation where the council and the public got to see actual numbers, and budgets, and projections.

I thought the Mayor, and Council member Lena Tam raised some valid questions and concerns about John Russo’s strategy. Both the Mayor and Councilmember Tam raised concerns about going into debt or using our reserves to pay to entitle a plan that doesn’t pencil out. The Mayor also raised the question, why should we sign on to a plan where the city takes on all the risk, and the developer takes none? She asked where is the shared risk in this development strategy.

Happy Landing

Back on the Planning Board agenda, along with the Inkies application if they don’t withdraw before tonight, is everyone’s favorite hot button item: Target.

Well, the Alameda Landing retail section really.   You can click to enlarge.

Target, trees, and trucks

Tonight, the Planning Board is actually going to be discussing three super exciting topics, the first is the new design for the Alameda Landing site, which I wrote about previously here.   Just to recap, the design is much better than the one that Catellus had reproduced for their leasing brochure and is marginally better than the 2007 design but there are a few design issues the accompany big box stores like Target that I hope will be addressed.

The best thing is that the new team from a newly liberated from under the ProLogis umbrella should be present at the meeting so I hope there will be a grilling of timelines and when Catellus intends to break ground on Alameda Landing since this project is literally taking forever.

The Planning Board will also be taking up the topic of the Master Street Tree Plan which the felling of the Park Street trees brought back into the spotlight.   My guess is that moving forward, the streetscape exemption will probably be taken of the list of exempted noticing requirements, unless the design review for the streetscape explicitly points out that healthy trees will be removed as part of the streetscape process.

Built to suit

This post is actually written in advance of watching last night’s Planning Board meeting, but So, I thought I was going crazy when I saw Michele Ellson and Dixie Jordan of Alameda Patch’s posts about the Planning Board meeting that I had missed talking about the agenda items before the meeting.  Turns out, the meeting was not last night, but rather will be next week, so you still have time to weigh in on the issue!

I wanted to point out somethings I really liked and things I hope to see improved in the design of Alameda Landing’s retail space.

As I posted in early October the rendering for the retail portion was really uninspiring for the leasing packet that was floating out there.   It was pretty, not to mince words, crappy.   It had a really strip mall-y sort of feel, which is fine, but definitely not what was promised by Catellus all those years ago.

This new rendering is a whole lot better, in fact, it may just be better than the 2007 design which had serious problems with some side walk issues.

On Target

So I’m not going to write about last night’s City Council meeting because I have not watched it yet.   As much as I enjoy watching City Council meetings, watching them live or even attending them is definitely not my cup of tea, so more than likely I’ll write about it tomorrow or the next day, whenever I get around to finishing the actual video.

But, what I am going to write about is Target.   So last week City Manager John Russo tweeted that Target had sent a letter of intent to the City of Alameda.   It was clarified on Twitter that it was indeed Alameda Landing that Target had its bullseye on.   Recently an email was sent by the commercial real estate brokers with this graphic proudly announcing:

Welcome to Alameda, may I take your order?

So, I’ll confess, I was actually out-of-town for the past few days, and as much as I adore you all, I don’t do a lot of blogging while I’m away.   That’s why I had more “time neutral” posts up then something more timely and relevant, like the dueling editorial letters from City Officials — more on that next week.   While I was gone, I did get this email and wanted to throw it up before it got too late as reviewing the editorial letters and going through everything I missed while away including the City Council meeting is going to take a bit more time.

Anyway, folks who go through the Webster Tube side of Alameda will know that the new Stargell alignment is pretty much done, there’s still some landscaping to be done, and the College of Alameda has put in some really nice low walls that has given the College a nice presence at that entrance.  You all may have been wondering what the huge parcel to the right of Webster Street when you are coming out of the tube into Alameda was going to be.   Right now it’s just a weedy area and there are some leftover “No on Measure A” signs still planted among the weeds.   It’s sort of a weird patch of space and the access is fairly limited so I never had huge hopes for anything spectucular there — or really anything at all — and since I can’t recall anything coming through the Planning Board about that space lately, I just assumed that Catellus was going to wait and incorporate that into future plans for Alameda Landing.

Trading spaces

Michele Ellson tweeted on Christmas day:

Report: ProLogis sells Alameda Landing developer Catellus for $505 million http://bit.ly/flqlv9 #theislandofalameda

— Michele Ellson (@TheAlamedan) December 26, 2010

Which probably means that the infinitely delayed Alameda Landing project will be further delayed as the new owners of the Catellus brand and Catellus projects decide what they want to do with the project itself.   ProLogis, the company the bought Catellus a while ago, has sold off that asset to TPG Capital (as in Texas Pacific Group).

According to this article:

TPG points out that “real estate-intensive businesses constitute a core area of investment focus and expertise,” including ST Residential, Harrah’s Entertainment, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, Neiman Marcus and ParkwayLife REIT.

Say you, say me

Here’s what I am enjoying about the whole Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.   Folks who generally wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about Development Agreements are suddenly so concerned about how the Development Agreement as presented in the Initiative itself is tantamount to a “giveaway” of epic proportions to SunCal.

The main points are, of course, captured in the ballot argument against the Initiative which were neatly bullet pointed for sound-byte-y ease and which I have addressed here.   The objections over the Development Agreement being included in the Initiative is that the City, had they had the ability to negotiate the Development Agreement, would never have put such terms in the Development Agreement that put the City in such a tough position.