Alameda Shade Shop

The first in an occasional series of posts chronicling local businesses.

A family owned business, Alameda Shade Shop has been around since 1949. While they stock a wide variety of interior window offerings, perhaps their specialty is the handcrafted roller shades that are manufactured onsite in the store. Having seen many samples of their work scattered all around the island, I decided to outfit my home with their shades and was impressed by their attention to detail and the impeccable customer service.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way to Alameda Shade Shop other than a satisfied customer.

Habitat for Humanity project

The Planning Board is scheduled to approve the construction of 8 townhomes at 626 Buena Vista Avenue (presently, the location of an abandoned car wash) — as part of an affordable housing project to be developed jointly by Habit for Humanity and Alameda Development Corporation. Construction is expected to start around the end of 2006 and estimated to last a year. As with most other such projects, these townhomes will be built primarily by volunteer labor — so this might be a great opportunity to pick up some new skills and have fun in the process.

Volunteering for HFH

Value-Engineering or Cost-Cutting?

Here’s another episode in the “what’s in a name?” series.

As mentioned earlier, I do feel the need for a local theater but am not exactly thrilled with the proposed design for the Alameda theater restoration project. The city recently invited bids for the restoration project and the lowest bids submitted for the parking garage and the theater renovation were significantly over budget (by $800,000 and $3.6m, respectively).

What does the city do to shoe horn these estimates to fit the budget? Value-engineer, of course! In the city’s definition:

“Value engineering” entails the elimination of various architectural features and embellishments, such as decorative screens, cornices and marquees on the cineplex structure, as well as one of the elevators in the parking garage.

Spirit of Alameda

I came across this article in the Chronicle while researching the recent legal victory for the city in the Alameda Belt Line trial. Jean Sweeney was instrumental in digging up the original sale agreement that gave Alameda the right to buy back the railroad properties at any time for the original $30,000 sale price, plus the cost of any added extensions and investments. The property is currently valued at $30m, so her efforts saved Alameda tens of millions of dollars (the judge ruled that the city can buy back the land for under $1m).

A tip o’ my hat to say thanks to Jean and her “can-do” spirit.

Clif Bar moving to Alameda

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Alameda pulled out all the stops and offered many incentives for Clif Bar. As reported in the Chronicle:

In addition, Alameda lured Clif Bar with its access to renewable energy, ample parking and public transit, and a building big enough to accommodate an extensive solar-panel system. Workers will also be able to send their children to Alameda public schools, even if the parents don’t live in Alameda.

I am not sure how the city is going to handle the logisitics of (non-Alameda resident) Clif Bar employees sending their kids to Alameda public schools. I reckon the school district will have this all figured out in due course

Clif Bar (annual revenue: $150m; 150 employees) will relocate to Alameda Landing in 2008.

Cross Alameda Trail

The city has (finally!) won the long standing Alameda Belt Line lawsuit.

The City of Alameda has prevailed in defending a decades-old agreement which allows it to buy back 40 acres of land from a railroad at the original price. In an order issued today, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jon Tigar ruled that the 1924 contract between the City and Alameda Belt Line “is enforceable and that the City of Alameda is entitled to repurchase the railroad for the sum of $966,027.” The City originally sold the property for $30,000 with a provision that the railroad must sell it back at that cost plus the cost of any additional investments and extensions, if the City chose to buy it back. A trial before Judge Tigar was held earlier this spring on claims by the railroad that the agreement is not legally enforceable.

What does this mean for Alameda?

Measure A: Then and Now

If you’ve lived here for any length of time, it is possible that you would have encountered the phrase “Measure A”. This was conceived in the 1970s when many of the Victorians that dot the island were in danger of being subjected to the wrecking ball to make way for (rather dodgy looking, if I may editorialize) apartment complexes. An unchecked growth of these new apartments could have potentially resulted in overcrowding and eventually, the loss of one of Alameda’s distinguishing traits: the painted Victorian ladies! Measure A banned the demolition of these historic buildings and replacing them with large multiple unit buildings. A subsequent amendment (in the 1990s) mandated a minimum lot size of 2,000 sq ft. Measure A has been largely successful in achieving its goals: there has been no new multi-family construction (with the exception of low income housing) on the island since the act was enacted.

That was then … fast forward to the present:

Alameda Landing

Although not very imaginatively chirstened, Alameda Landing is the 1.3 million square feet of property located along the Alameda/Oakland estuary in Alameda’s west side. A large portion of the property faces Jack London Square and the Port of Oakland.

The city has ambitious plans to convert this space into a mixed development of residential, retail and office space (the plans also include an open park). As has been mentioned earlier, Alameda suffers from a significant amount of revenue leakage due to the limited retail opportunities on the island. A recent study estimates that 27% ($260m) of the retail dollars were spent elsewhere.

Projected 2006 retail leakage ($million):

• Automobile Dealers: $105.5
• Discount Stores: $43.2
• Furniture and Home Furnishings: $31.9
• Specialty Apparel: $28.9
• Household Appliance and Electronics: $11.5
• Specialty Retail and Specialty Foods: $7.4

The proposed retail stores will primarily consist of the above categories (there are no plans to include any automobile dealerships or discount stores). The city planning board recently approved the master plan for the project, and the wheels are in motion. This project augurs well for Alameda and has the potential to plug the retail revenue leakage.

Additional information (including project renderings) are at the Alameda Landing website.

The “Tubes”

Ingress and egress (for vehicular traffic) in Alameda is via four bridges (3 to Oakland, 1 to Bay Farm Island) and two tunnels (a.ka. Webster and Posey Tubes). These tubes went through a major earthquake retrofit that lasted three years (2000-2003) during which time, they were closed from Friday night to Sunday night every week to accomodate the retrofit work. This resulted in detours up the wazoo and a great deal of inconvenience.

Unfortunately, even though the retrofit work lasted 3 long years the appearance of the tubes leaves much to be desired and are not exactly a great advertisement for Alameda. It is certainly not unreasonable to expect that one of the major approaches to the city would be better maintained than they presently are. The roof is bare concrete and doesn’t match the rest of the (hideously green tiled) walls. Maintenance on these tubes appears to be virtually non-existent. The walls are covered with soot and some of the lights are burnt out (it has been this way for a while).

I mailed CalTrans about the current state of affairs and also forwarded my complaint to ChronicleWatch. Stay tuned for any updates.

Coffee shops

Alameda has 5 Starbucks (that’s 5 too many, if you ask me) and just a solitary Peet’s (we need more!). There are also a handful of independent coffee shops sprinkled across the island. Use delocator.net to locate these independent shops. On a related note, Peet’s will soon be moving into a new 135,000 square foot coffee roasting and distribution facility in Alameda. Perhaps this might lead to additional Peet’s stores?