Oct 30 2015
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Join Us – Encinal Terminals Planning Meeting #2

By | Encinal | No Comments

At our 10/10 site tour and 10/22 community meeting, we received some great feedback from members of the community about the possibilities for re-developing Encinal Terminals.

We want to ensure everyone has a chance to make their voice heard about the future of this unique property. If you missed the last meeting, you will have a second chance to provide your input at our next forum. The agenda and format for the next forum will be identical to that from our meeting on 10/22.

When: Monday, November 16th 7-8:30p
Where: Mastick Senior Center Social Hall, 1155 Santa Clara Avenue, Alameda

Also, mark your calendars for December 10th 7-8:30 p.m. at Mastick Senior Center Social Hall for a presentation incorporating feedback we received from you at the meetings in October and November.

These events are open to the community. Please feel free to share this invitation with anyone you think might add value to the conversation and share our event link on Facebook to your social networks.

– Tim Lewis Communities

Oct 12 2015
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The Encinal Terminals

Neighborhood Planning Meeting on 10/22

By | Encinal | No Comments

Join us for a neighborhood planning meeting regarding development of the Encinal Terminals site, located on the Northern Waterfront of Alameda.

The meeting will take place on Thursday, October 22nd from 7:00 PM until 8:30 PM. You will have the opportunity to provide input on the development of the waterfront site.

The meeting will be held at the Mastick Senior Center Social Hall located at 1155 Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda.

Jan 07 2015
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Alameda: Plans to redevelop Del Monte warehouse to go forward

By | Warehouse | No Comments

By Peter Hegarty

phegarty@bayareanewsgroup.com

ALAMEDA — A plan to build housing in the landmark Del Monte warehouse on Buena Vista Avenue will go forward after the City Council opted unanimously Tuesday not to rescind a decision that greenlighted the project.

Mayor Trish Spencer placed the proposal to rescind the master plan and development agreement that developer Tim Lewis Communities had secured with the city last month on the agenda, saying she wanted an opportunity for herself and the two council members who were elected in November to weigh in on the issue.
But on Tuesday most of the approximately 50 public speakers urged the council to allow the developer’s plan to go ahead, including some who said reversing the Dec. 16 decision could discourage future investment in the city.

Among those calling for the decision to stand was Councilman Tony Daysog, who voted against approving the ordinances last month, when he said more study was needed on the potential traffic generated by the project.

A repeal could expose the city to costly litigation, Daysog said, and that negotiating for less housing at the site or securing other possible benefits was not worth the risk to the city’s finances.

He was echoed by Council members Jim Oddie and Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, who noted that the developer has pledged $2 million toward the Jean Sweeney Open Space Park and $5 million for other city parks.

“Stop and think about what we would be leaving on the table and what we would lose if we rescind this deal and not go forward,” Ashcraft said.

Along with opting not to reverse the December decision, the council supported Vice Mayor Frank Matarrese’s call for city officials to prepare a report for a moratorium on “density bonuses,” which allow developers to build additional housing units in exchange for also building more affordable units or providing public amenities.

The issue was not fully addressed before the Del Monte project was approved, Matarrese said.

He also said the project should have been reviewed within the context of the overall redevelopment of the city’s northern waterfront.

As with Spencer, Matarrese and Oddie were elected in November.

Tim Lewis Communities plans to build up to 414 apartments, lofts and townhouses and at least 30,000 square feet of commercial and retail space on the Del Monte site. It includes two vacant lots between the 240,000-square-foot warehouse and Sherman Street.

The Roseville-based developer will put 308 of the housing units within the approximately 5-acre building and provide 415 parking spaces for the residents. Clement Avenue will be extended as part of the project.

The red brick exterior of the building, one of the city’s 30 designated landmarks, will be maintained under the plan, while a new walkway will be cut through it to allow public access to the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. The project also will include changes to some nearby streets to make them more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.

Built in 1927 for California Packing, the Del Monte warehouse stretches 1,000 feet long. A business now rents part of the warehouse as a distribution facility.

While most public speakers urged the council to go forward with the project, others backed repealing the ordinances, saying the project needed more scrutiny and that it was wrong for the previous council to approve it just before leaving office.

Mike Henneberry, president of the Planning Board, said last month’s approval followed a string of public hearings and that the process was “lengthy, sound and fully transparent.”

Those calling for a repeal simply opposed development in the city, Henneberry said.

“It’s about politics and not about the process,” he said.

Community activist Jon Spangler said other proposals to redevelop the Del Monte warehouse stalled and never even came before the council.

“I am glad to see something finally getting done with that derelict property, and I don’t mean as a warehouse for a big box retailer,” Spangler said.
Reach Peter Hegarty at 510-748-1654 or follow him on Twitter.com/Peter_Hegarty.

Jun 10 2014
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Developer to transform historic Alameda warehouse into 309 waterfront apartments

By | News | No Comments

Blanca Torres
San Francisco Business Times

New lofts and apartments could soon fill up the cavernous interior of a former Del Monte warehouse in Alameda, part of a developer’s vision to turn an underutilized stretch of waterfront property into a thriving district along the Oakland Estuary.

Tim Lewis Communities plans to revamp the historic, 235,792-square-foot brick-and-timber warehouse into 309 apartments and 19,000 square feet of retail as well as to build new construction on surrounding vacant land.

“We want to attract people who want to be close to the water,” said James Meek, who is leading the development for Tim Lewis Communities. “With amenities like retail and restaurants, it becomes a waterfront playground.”

The warehouse, built in 1927, extends 1,000 feet long and 240 feet wide along a curved line that makes it look like a huge brick snake. It now houses some industrial tenants such as beverage and lumber distributors. The developer hired BAR Architects to design the redevelopment with two-story apartment units, lofts and retail spaces.

Adjoining land is slated for at least 55 units of additional housing and 20,000 square feet of more retail. The units in the warehouse structure will range from one to three bedrooms, measuring between 1,150 to 1,766 square feet. Ten of the units will be designed as live/work.

The developer, a homebuilder based in Roseville, is pushing the project through the city’s approval process and is set to go before the planning commission and city council in the next few months. Meek estimates the project could break ground in mid-2015. “It’s an exciting project for the city,” said Andrew Thomas, a city planner who has been working on the development. “It’s a historic resource we’ve been trying to redevelop and preserve for many years.”

The warehouse sits on an 11-acre site adjacent to the Encinal Terminals, a 17-acre former working dock that Tim Lewis Communities also plans to redevelop into housing, retail and recreation space.

The developer sees the former terminal as a complement to the warehouse project. Both sites will connect to a future 21-acre city park that Tim Lewis Communities is pitching in $2 million to fund.

The stretch of waterfront doesn’t offer much access to the water other than a marina. The Del Monte warehouse site neighbors Marina Village, a 1.1 million square-foot office and lab space complex, and a vacant parcel known as the Chipman site that Lennar Homes is developing into 89 homes.

Meek said the developer is looking at setting up a water shuttle service to ferry future residents across the estuary into Oakland, where they can access BART via bus lines.

Alameda residents frequently oppose major new housing developments because of concerns over increased traffic via the island city’s bridges and tunnels. The warehouse project would help add variety to Alameda’s housing stock by bringing more apartments to the market.

“We have a long history of doing single family homes in this town,” Thomas said.

Apr 01 2014
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Alameda’s Working Waterfront

By | Encinal | No Comments

BC Staff Report

Published: April 2014

Arivia question: where was the first land-based container crane installed, heralding a revolution in world commerce? Oakland? Long Beach?

The answer would be Alameda. The crane was installed in 1959 at the Matson Lines Encinal Terminals to speed delivery of pineapples from Hawaii. What didn’t seem significant at the time turned out to be a very big deal. It may not be as big as containerization, but something remarkable is quietly emerging on Alameda’s waterfront again.

The San Francisco Bay waterfront is rapidly gentrifying—Bay Crossings, as an original tenant of the Ferry Building, is part of that trend—with expensive restaurants, ballparks and boutiques crowding out traditional maritime businesses. In stark contrast, Alameda positively welcomes working waterfront businesses with open arms. Some Alameda leaders envision a dedicated zone for such outfits stretching from the High Street Bridge clear around to Ferry Point on the old Naval Air Base, altogether comprising roughly one-third the main island’s waterfront.

Alameda’s contrarian stance is a boon for likely suspects like stolid marine operators Bay Ship & Yacht Company (barge and mid-sized ship repair), Dutra (dike restoration) and Power Engineering (seawall construction). They—along with their hundreds of well-paid blue-collar jobs for welders, painters and other workers—look to be securely in Alameda for decades to come.

Yet Alameda’s is not your father’s waterfront, something you’d conjure up from an old Marlon Brando movie. Alameda’s new working waterfront is a hotbed of distinctive, innovative and thoroughly hip young companies. They include craft breweries, a high-wheel “bonecrusher” bike restorer, a deep-sea submarine maker, an America’s Cup team and much and many more.

All in all, Alameda seems poised to contest with San Francisco’s white-hot Dogpatch neighborhood for the sobriquet of San Francisco Bay’s hippest up-and-coming waterfront spot. The Dogpatch is epicenter of the so-called “maker’s movement,” the source of indigenously crafted goods marketed under the “San Francisco Made” moniker. Like Alameda, it is a heritage maritime district.

Yet in the Dogpatch, gentrification looks to crowd out traditional maritime operations, which are under assault by a slew of regulatory, zoning and neighborhood pressures. The BAE Shipyard there even saw its “Fred Flintstone” yard whistle stolen and held for ransom, with yard management paying in order to obtain its return. Unlike San Francisco, riven with controversy over the skyrocketing cost of living and high unemployment, Alameda’s welcoming policies are yielding a bounty of well-paid blue-collar jobs toiling on green projects like barges to get trucks off highways and sail-powered oceangoing tankers.

Yet Alameda is enjoying the best of both worlds as all manner of new, decidedly terrestrial businesses are also cropping up, cheek by jowl with traditional maritime firms, thereby greatly increasing the quality of life and moving Alameda into a new league of sophistication. The trend mirrors what is happening in places like New York City, where Brooklyn neighborhoods are, in the eyes of many, stealing the march on Manhattan as the preferred places to live.

With this issue, Bay Crossings kicks off monthly highlights of the intriguing companies who have set up shop in Alameda’s working waterfront. We hope this will become a comprehensive guide to interesting and fun places to visit and enjoy along Alameda’s innovative, hip and burgeoning waterfront scene. It’ll be available in print and on our website.

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