Oakland Projects and Business Development (San Francisco: foreclose, rental, construction jobs)

[CF510]

Originally Posted by jade408

Yeah, I guess I only heard about it as the center of sketchiness by the time I moved to the east bay. It was considered a no go zone. I think that reputation of the mall even spread down to the South Bay in the 80s.

But even if it was "the mall" it really isn't in the center of town.

But it is really odd. I mean when yout think about it, there isn't a Macy's in Oakland, Berkeley, or Alameda. It seems pretty obvious, since there are what, 600K people between the 3 cities.

Sears is in an island alone in the downtown shoppiing district.

The economy combined with theft scared major retailers away from Eastmont and made Oakland the only city with 3 professional sports teams but no mall. Hopefully those retailers can come back one day, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[jsba]

Oakland has tried to court both Nordstroms and Macy's but to no real avail. Nordstroms in particular was worried about losing sales in its Walnut Creek location that it finds to be more valuable than an inner east bay location for some reason. Macy's wanted to locate in Oakland but basically wanted to pay nothing in taxes and what not.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by jsba

Oakland has tried to court both Nordstroms and Macy's but to no real avail. Nordstroms in particular was worried about losing sales in its Walnut Creek location that it finds to be more valuable than an inner east bay location for some reason. Macy's wanted to locate in Oakland but basically wanted to pay nothing in taxes and what not.

I wonder about that. I split my dollars between Nordstrom in SF and Walnut Creek and occasionally Pleasanton, but that one is going downhill. But I wonder if people who live north of Berkeley or in Alameda head over to Walnut Creek. It is a bit of a pain from those points. Most people who live on the east side of the tunnel would continue to go to the Walnut Creek store. I wonder how many people west of the tunnel go, and what they spend. Or if they go to SF.

Nordstrom is really trying to transform the Walnut Creek store, it has a lot more uber high-end brands these days.

[jsba]

It seems to me that high end retailors are tapping walnut creek to be the "union Square" "Santana Row" of the east bay. They are bypassing all of the inner east bay cities to set up shop out there. There are even plans to expand the Broadway Plaza. Emeryvill in a way has lost its luster and draw to major retailers. Bay Street is owned by the same company that owns Bayfair And despite some of there best efforts both locations are flat in terms of true success. Bay Street does decent but is still not operating in the black and is short large development for completion. Oakland has a chance to capitalize on this but doesnt seem to have the political will to go out and court these companies and give them some conssesions to get them into town.

[Shelacious]

^ Yeah, I'm thinking that these retailers are figuring that their target Oakland/Berkeley/south of the tunnel customers are close to highway 13 and will have little to no difficulty just driving to WC from there.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by CF510

The economy combined with theft scared major retailers away from Eastmont and made Oakland the only city with 3 professional sports teams but no mall. Hopefully those retailers can come back one day, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Kind of sad, seeing as how EPA (of all places) has managed to attract some large retail. But it probably is true that retailers are targeting Walnut Creek to serve the area.

[18Montclair]

What a great development. We need a hundred more projects just like this.

Oakland builds on industrial muscle - San Francisco Business Times

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by athleticsfan72737489

You would think that if both San Leandro and Hayward can support a Macy's then both Emeryville and Oakland could too.

Richmond also has a Macy's at Hilltop Mall.

Oakland could support any store and Oaklanders represent a great percentage of the customers at stores in surrounding towns such as Emeryville and San Leandro, but the city itself is severely lacking in mid market and upscale retail offerings, which I believe has a lot to do with the bad reputation the city has as far as crime and poverty(ironic since Oakland is home to literally thousands of wealthy households, a good proportion of them probably too upscale for Macy's anyway. lol)

But then if we dont even frequent the one department store we do have, Sear's on Broadway(which I personally think is due to the store not really matching the city's demographic needs), then its no wonder that retailers stay way.

On the other hand, Target and Walmart, 2 relatively new additions appear to be bursting at the seams in Oakland as far as sales, should be proof to other retailers that we have the means to support more.

[jsba]

Yes Target and Walmart are doing well, but notice where they chose to put those two stores. Essentially at the outer edges of the City. I agree with you that the city as a whole is probably above a Macy's level but having one wouldn't hurt as long as it wasn't alone like the Sears currently is. If we want department stores the city is going to have to do some sort of package deal with them when we bring in at least 2 decent stores at one time to catalyze a specific area, preferably downtown, an area that should be the cites natural gathering place.

The issue with this is not just perception, its also land. Oakland land is some of the most expensive around and our building stock some of the oldest. New department stores need much more space than any current building provides but land is unrealistically expensive for them to really consider building from scratch. the city would have to either subsidize the land for them, which it cant afford to do, or subsidize its land taxes which would be beneficial in that we would still get the sales taxes and the new stores would draw more stores to them.

[Nineties Flava]

This is disgusting.

Originally Posted by Oakland Local

In the wake of the ongoing foreclosure crisis, Oakland housing is undergoing another troubling shift: Out-of-town investors are snapping up distressed property in the flatlands, squeezing out locals and potentially changing the face of many communities, a new report finds.

...The Oakland-based group said that only 10 out of the top 30 foreclosure investors in Oakland are actually based in the city.

"What might this level of absentee ownership mean for the stability of Oakland's flatland neighborhoods?" asked Steve King, housing and economic development coordinator for the Urban Strategies Council. "Depending upon one's perspective, what might look like an investment strategy to a hedge fund manager or a real estate investment firm, can look suspiciously like a divestment strategy - draining wealth in low income neighborhoods."

About 93 percent of all investor acquisitions are concentrated in the low-income flatland neighborhoods, the report notes.

..."This is an outrage," she said." People in Oakland typically (buy a home) and put in roots in a neighborhood and stay there and this strategy with investors is doing away with that. It's taking away from our ability to have neighborhoods where people know each other ... we need that in Oakland."