Post by bennyp81 on Jun 15, 2005 11:01:41 GMT -8
Bart Reed
User ID: 1606604 Apr 19th 11:22 PM
Tri-Valley Herald: Friday, April 18, 2003
Transit hub stumbles at 'finish line'; Planned center around Dublin BART station reaches deal as finances move out of reach
By Brooke Bryant
Staff Writer
DUBLIN -- First it was going to be 30 percent affordable. Then the flailing economy nibbled away until it stood at 15 percent -- and now the county says it may need help with even that.
Dublin and Alameda County signed a master develop-ment agreement this week for the Transit Center, a planned fusion of housing, offices and shops clustered around the Dublin BART station that has been likened to Berkeley's College Avenue.
County representative Pat Cashman called the agreement a long-awaited "finish line" for the project. But he also said he may be back, this time to ask the city for help financing some of the most affordable units, in case federal funding doesn't materialize.
Several city officials were unenthusiastic about the request, and pointed out that the city already is providing incentives.
In addition, the promised number of affordable units has been cut in half.
City Manager Richard Ambrose suggested possibly delaying the agreement "if there is a $2 million request lurking in the wings."
Ultimately, council members agreed to listen to any request the county may make in the future, but made it clear they weren't promising anything.
Cashman also withdrew a request the county made recently for a $2.7 million fee waiver.
The request was based on the fact that the Transit Center project will provide 37 more affordable units than city law mandates.
Since the city recently granted a similar credit to another project that is going above and beyond the affordable requirement, Cashman said his
reasoning was that the county project should get the same treatment.
But city staff argued that the original agreement with the county had stipulated 15 percent affordable, so the county is not actually
providing anything above that.
In addition, the city already is allowing the county to cluster the affordable units instead of spreading them throughout the project. "I know when to fold them," Cashman said, and withdrew the request.
Preliminary plans for the Transit Center call for 1,500 residential units and about 2 million square feet of offices, with retail shops on the ground floor of both. All this will be built around a village green and a series of plazas that lead to the Dublin BART station, which will be getting a new parking garage.
Þ-®-Þ-®-Þ
Bart Reed
User ID: 1606604 May 11th 12:05 AM
Oakland Tribune: Wednesday, April 30, 2003
New city transit village launched
Officials hope complex near West Oakland BART will be the first of many
By Cecily Burt
Staff Writer
OAKLAND -- When dignitaries in hard hats shovel up ceremonial scoops of dirt today at a muddy lot near the West Oakland BART station, they'll be doing more than breaking ground on the new Mandela Gateway housing development.
City officials are banking that the new apart-ments, designed to attract renters and homebuyers with a range of incomes, will serve as a catalyst to lure other developers to the West Oakland Transit Village.
As with other transit villages at BART stations, the idea is to get people out of cars by building housing, shops and restaurants near public trans-portation. Serious planning for the West Oakland Transit Village began in 1999 and is finally starting to take shape.
The 168-unit Mandela Gateway complex will replace the old Westwood Gardens, a 46-unit public housing
complex run by the Oakland Housing Authority on the block bordered by Seventh, Eighth and Center streets and Mandela Parkway.
The project includes 14 for-sale townhouses at Eighth and Center streets, facing a row of restored Victorians across the street.
"The Mandela Gateway will help set the tone with a plaza entrance," said Margot Lederer-Prado, the city planner working on the transit village project.
Mandela Gateway represents the new model for public housing by mixing low- to medium-income housing among apartments, townhouses and in some
cases single-family homes.
The former low-income family tenants of Westwood Gardens earned about $15,000 a year, or 20 percent
of the area median income. All will be offered space in the new development.
The other apartments will be marketed to working families earning a maximum of $40,000 to $45,000 a year, with the for-sale townhomes going to peo-ple earning 80 percent of the area median income, or about$55,000 to $60,000 a year.
The project is a collaboration between Bridge Housing Corporation and the Oakland Housing Authority, with funding from the city of Oakland
and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Michael Willis is the architect.
The apartments will be three to four stories along
Seventh and phase down to two stories facing Eighth street. The building will also include 15,000 total square feet of retail space and a pharmacy as an anchor tenant.
Philip Neville, director of Development for the Housing Authority, said recently that other devel-opers are planning to do things around the BART station but they were looking for someone else to take the risk and go first.
The Seventh Street corridor was one of Oakland's first commercial hubs, and the street enjoyed a renaissance in the 1940s and 1950s as the place to go in the Bay Area for jazz, blues and gospel music, including the legendary Slim Jenkins nightclub.
But Seventh Street's thriving businesses have suffered over the years as large state and federal projects such as the Central Freeway, BART and the Main Post Office moved in, leveling blocks of homes and businesses.
Those that remained struggled and closed as people
shunned the unattractive street or fled to the suburbs.
But people are flocking back to West Oakland, and a new time is near for the blighted Seventh Street
corridor, said Gloria King-Jackson, a project analyst with the city's Community and Economic Development Agency who has been working on the transit village plan to revitalize the area.
The agency's council committee Tuesday awarded a $203,500 grant to Walter Hood Design, a local landscape architect who also created the inviting design for Lafayette Park, to create a street-scape design plan for the Seventh Street corridor to augment the transit village plan.
The final plan will be a "construction-ready" collection of ideas to get people out of their cars, off BART, and into the future collection of shops and restaurants that will dot the area.
All but $18,500 of the contract is being funded by a Caltrans Environmental Justice grant.
Hood will gather community input, and there is no shortage of that, said Lederer-Prado. Ideas are already formulating for a Seventh Street "Walk of Fame" that will celebrate the street's musical heyday with a museum and tours of the area.
In addition, the Alliance for West Oakland is planning a five-story parking structure with 110 housing units and 41,000 square feet of
commercial space on the other side of the BART station, at Fifth Street and Mandela Parkway.
Construction has finally started on the oft-delayed Mandela Parkway beautification project, which will blanket the roadway's wide median with
trees, plants, benches, new lighting and bike and pedestrian paths between Seventh and 32nd streets.
A similar streetscape project is planned for Eighth Street, from Mandela Parkway to Pine Street.
The problematic Red Star Yeast Factory is closed and developers are already expressing interest in the site, Lederer-Prado said. And before too long,
Third Street will be open all the way from Emery-
ville to Jack London Square.
The groundbreaking for the new Mandela Gateway project will take place today, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Seventh Street and Mandela Parkway, adjacent to the West Oakland BART station.
Refreshments provided.
Þ-®-Þ-®-Þ
User ID: 1606604 Apr 19th 11:22 PM
Tri-Valley Herald: Friday, April 18, 2003
Transit hub stumbles at 'finish line'; Planned center around Dublin BART station reaches deal as finances move out of reach
By Brooke Bryant
Staff Writer
DUBLIN -- First it was going to be 30 percent affordable. Then the flailing economy nibbled away until it stood at 15 percent -- and now the county says it may need help with even that.
Dublin and Alameda County signed a master develop-ment agreement this week for the Transit Center, a planned fusion of housing, offices and shops clustered around the Dublin BART station that has been likened to Berkeley's College Avenue.
County representative Pat Cashman called the agreement a long-awaited "finish line" for the project. But he also said he may be back, this time to ask the city for help financing some of the most affordable units, in case federal funding doesn't materialize.
Several city officials were unenthusiastic about the request, and pointed out that the city already is providing incentives.
In addition, the promised number of affordable units has been cut in half.
City Manager Richard Ambrose suggested possibly delaying the agreement "if there is a $2 million request lurking in the wings."
Ultimately, council members agreed to listen to any request the county may make in the future, but made it clear they weren't promising anything.
Cashman also withdrew a request the county made recently for a $2.7 million fee waiver.
The request was based on the fact that the Transit Center project will provide 37 more affordable units than city law mandates.
Since the city recently granted a similar credit to another project that is going above and beyond the affordable requirement, Cashman said his
reasoning was that the county project should get the same treatment.
But city staff argued that the original agreement with the county had stipulated 15 percent affordable, so the county is not actually
providing anything above that.
In addition, the city already is allowing the county to cluster the affordable units instead of spreading them throughout the project. "I know when to fold them," Cashman said, and withdrew the request.
Preliminary plans for the Transit Center call for 1,500 residential units and about 2 million square feet of offices, with retail shops on the ground floor of both. All this will be built around a village green and a series of plazas that lead to the Dublin BART station, which will be getting a new parking garage.
Þ-®-Þ-®-Þ
Bart Reed
User ID: 1606604 May 11th 12:05 AM
Oakland Tribune: Wednesday, April 30, 2003
New city transit village launched
Officials hope complex near West Oakland BART will be the first of many
By Cecily Burt
Staff Writer
OAKLAND -- When dignitaries in hard hats shovel up ceremonial scoops of dirt today at a muddy lot near the West Oakland BART station, they'll be doing more than breaking ground on the new Mandela Gateway housing development.
City officials are banking that the new apart-ments, designed to attract renters and homebuyers with a range of incomes, will serve as a catalyst to lure other developers to the West Oakland Transit Village.
As with other transit villages at BART stations, the idea is to get people out of cars by building housing, shops and restaurants near public trans-portation. Serious planning for the West Oakland Transit Village began in 1999 and is finally starting to take shape.
The 168-unit Mandela Gateway complex will replace the old Westwood Gardens, a 46-unit public housing
complex run by the Oakland Housing Authority on the block bordered by Seventh, Eighth and Center streets and Mandela Parkway.
The project includes 14 for-sale townhouses at Eighth and Center streets, facing a row of restored Victorians across the street.
"The Mandela Gateway will help set the tone with a plaza entrance," said Margot Lederer-Prado, the city planner working on the transit village project.
Mandela Gateway represents the new model for public housing by mixing low- to medium-income housing among apartments, townhouses and in some
cases single-family homes.
The former low-income family tenants of Westwood Gardens earned about $15,000 a year, or 20 percent
of the area median income. All will be offered space in the new development.
The other apartments will be marketed to working families earning a maximum of $40,000 to $45,000 a year, with the for-sale townhomes going to peo-ple earning 80 percent of the area median income, or about$55,000 to $60,000 a year.
The project is a collaboration between Bridge Housing Corporation and the Oakland Housing Authority, with funding from the city of Oakland
and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Michael Willis is the architect.
The apartments will be three to four stories along
Seventh and phase down to two stories facing Eighth street. The building will also include 15,000 total square feet of retail space and a pharmacy as an anchor tenant.
Philip Neville, director of Development for the Housing Authority, said recently that other devel-opers are planning to do things around the BART station but they were looking for someone else to take the risk and go first.
The Seventh Street corridor was one of Oakland's first commercial hubs, and the street enjoyed a renaissance in the 1940s and 1950s as the place to go in the Bay Area for jazz, blues and gospel music, including the legendary Slim Jenkins nightclub.
But Seventh Street's thriving businesses have suffered over the years as large state and federal projects such as the Central Freeway, BART and the Main Post Office moved in, leveling blocks of homes and businesses.
Those that remained struggled and closed as people
shunned the unattractive street or fled to the suburbs.
But people are flocking back to West Oakland, and a new time is near for the blighted Seventh Street
corridor, said Gloria King-Jackson, a project analyst with the city's Community and Economic Development Agency who has been working on the transit village plan to revitalize the area.
The agency's council committee Tuesday awarded a $203,500 grant to Walter Hood Design, a local landscape architect who also created the inviting design for Lafayette Park, to create a street-scape design plan for the Seventh Street corridor to augment the transit village plan.
The final plan will be a "construction-ready" collection of ideas to get people out of their cars, off BART, and into the future collection of shops and restaurants that will dot the area.
All but $18,500 of the contract is being funded by a Caltrans Environmental Justice grant.
Hood will gather community input, and there is no shortage of that, said Lederer-Prado. Ideas are already formulating for a Seventh Street "Walk of Fame" that will celebrate the street's musical heyday with a museum and tours of the area.
In addition, the Alliance for West Oakland is planning a five-story parking structure with 110 housing units and 41,000 square feet of
commercial space on the other side of the BART station, at Fifth Street and Mandela Parkway.
Construction has finally started on the oft-delayed Mandela Parkway beautification project, which will blanket the roadway's wide median with
trees, plants, benches, new lighting and bike and pedestrian paths between Seventh and 32nd streets.
A similar streetscape project is planned for Eighth Street, from Mandela Parkway to Pine Street.
The problematic Red Star Yeast Factory is closed and developers are already expressing interest in the site, Lederer-Prado said. And before too long,
Third Street will be open all the way from Emery-
ville to Jack London Square.
The groundbreaking for the new Mandela Gateway project will take place today, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Seventh Street and Mandela Parkway, adjacent to the West Oakland BART station.
Refreshments provided.
Þ-®-Þ-®-Þ