Wine.com, a popular Internet wine merchant, is establishing its headquarters and main distribution facility in the 517,000 square foot Ford Point Building.
Published: May, 2006
Wine.com, a popular Internet wine merchant, is establishing its headquarters and main distribution facility in the 517,000 square foot Ford Point Building.
After an extensive site search throughout the East Bay, Wine.com signed the 53,280 square foot lease agreement for the site to replace its existing facility on the Oakland Army Base.
According to Richmond’s Community & Economic Development Director, Steve Duran, Wine.com is a perfect fit for the Ford Point Building and for Richmond, further strengthening a strong food and beverage production and distribution sector.
Founded in 1997, Wine.com is America’s leading online wine retailer, offering over 10,000 unique wines to 26 States and to Japan. Wine.com offers doorstep delivery of premium fine wines, gourmet products and related accessories, as well as wine clubs, individual and corporate gifts, with a concierge and personal fine wine experts available to assist by phone and online. The public may also purchase gift baskets onsite.
The Ford Point Building structure (former Ford Assembly Plant Building) is an outstanding example of 20th-century industrial architecture, designed by Albert Kahn, known for his daylight factory design, which employed his trademark extensive window openings. It is the only remaining example of Kahn’s work on the West Coast and is a prime example of industrial architecture of that period. It was the largest assembly plant to be built on the West Coast (517,000 square feet on 26.5 acres). It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and will eventually house the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front Historic Park facilities.
This prime waterfront property, located at the foot of Harbour Way South St., on the Richmond Marina Bay shoreline, is currently in its last stage of renovation by owner, Orton Development, Inc. The team comprising Gary Fracchia, Jeff Leenhouts, and Brian Collins with NAI BT Commercial brokered the lease.
The building is being converted to include flexible spaces for live-work use as well as traditional storefronts and offices. The building features a sawtooth roof design with large northern skylights, providing incredible natural light and airy space. And while most modern live-work lofts limit the type of businesses to a traditional office type environment, the Ford Point Building offers flexibility in the type of businesses that it can handle, including some manufacturing and light industrial applications. The building is located conveniently near the Interstate-80 corridor, just off Hwy 580, with easy access to Marin, Oakland and San Francisco, and is sure to attract numerous new tenants soon.
The Ford Point Building boasts a rich historical past but is now ready to embark on an exciting new path for the future. It is poised for the next generation of food distribution, multimedia, arts and technology companies; and Wine.com, unquestionably, is a major first step along that path.
New Pocket Parks on Richmond’s Shoreline
Forty years ago, public access to Richmond’s beautiful shoreline views had been reduced to a public boat ramp that was about 65 feet wide. The rest was owned by companies such as Richmond Kaiser Shipyards, Union Pacific Rail Road and Standard Oil (now ChevronTexaco) or zoned for industrial use and inaccessible for recreational use by the public. Today, there are 15 miles of public shoreline and 3,000 acres of shoreline parks in Richmond.
For nearly a century, there have been a number of platted but undeveloped portions of streets in Point Richmond that terminate at the San Francisco Bay Shoreline. Over 30 years ago, Lucretia Edwards, a visionary of shoreline preservation in Richmond, dreamed that these unused remnants of public property in magnificent locations would be made available and welcoming for public use. For eight years, a group of volunteers, including architects, engineers, landscape architects and construction managers, led by Maurice Doherty and assisted by City of Richmond staff, worked to secure a grant and design mini-parks at four locations. These new view and access points have been recovered from weeds, brush and fences and are now available for all to enjoy Richmond’s fantastic neighborhood shoreline.
