Post #262216 by thejab on Sun, Oct 22, 2006 12:39 PM

Alameda, CA (bear with me Pablus)

5 years ago this town on the bay next to Oakland had a great 1950s small town feel. There are two main business districts (Park Street and Webster Street) in town. Park St. has been doing very good business in the last few years with new stores coming in (like Peet's coffee, Books Inc., Happy Trails, restaurants, Subway - ugh), and fewer vacancies. So, the city decides a couple of years ago to "beautify" the street. They change the 50s look to something nostalgic of an earlier time with new sidewalks with planter areas and 20s style light posts. Meanwhile, some older businesses fail, like the old pharmacy and hot dog shop.

They do the same thing with Webster St., which they called a "Rennaisance Project". The sidewalks now stick out at intersections effectively removing all the right turn lanes, making traffic flow worse, especially when buses stop in the middle of the street because they can no longer pull over as far to the curb. Then there is the disruption in traffic (car and foot) and the reduction in business for the year or so it took to do the work. And they removed all the old trees because "they lack consistency and are in conflict with the proposed transit plazas and amenity plazas".

I ask why did they spend so much money to redo these streets when the new businesses were already opening up before the work was done? I don't think anyone benifitted by the work.

And I really don't understand why people want to take something that already looks classic and try to make it look like an earlier era.

Our 1960s era mall called Southshore Center has been under redevelopment for a few years. It used to be a nice small outdoor mall with trees and benches, with Ross, Albertson's, and some small shops. Now they are rebuilding it in a psuedo upscale mediterranean style and they renamed it Alameda Towne Center. Don't forget the "e" o the end of town, as it makes it seem more fancy! Whatever. I do admit that not many people went there 5 years ago so I guess businesses had a hard time, but now with the new Trader Joe's and huge Safeway the traffic on Park Street and area around South Shore is much worse because a lot of people drive pretty far to shop there. And the city wants to bring in a Target store next.

Finally, there has been much controversy about the restoration of the historic Alameda Theater, which is an art deco masterpiece designed by Timothy Pflueger, whoc designed Oakland's amazing Paramount Theatre. It's fairly complicated an issue, but in a nutshell the city is paying millions so a developer can partially restore it but build a multiplex and parking structure next door. And they tore down an old googie drive-in for the multiplex, which was a video rental store in recent years. I applaud the city for wanting to restore the theater, but I think they should have spent the money on restoring it as a single screen theater for films and performances instead of subsidizing the developer's multiplex plan.

Stupid planners.