Last month, we told you about the unique history of Richmond's Point Molate.
BC Staff Report
Published: August, 2015
Last month, we told you about the unique history of Richmond’s Point Molate. This month, in our continuing series of articles about this waterfront jewel, we cover some of the relatively recent actions concerning development plans for this location.
The City of Richmond owns a 413-acre site at Point Molate, just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The site is bounded by Chevron refining facilities and properties to the north, east and south. Properties to the north and south are used for storage and transportation of petroleum products, while the more intensive industrial uses occur to the east of the site. Caltrans owns a small sliver of property near the base of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, while the State of California owns a piece of the subtidal lands south of Terminal One.
Approximately 84 acres of upland property are under 15 percent slope and are suitable for development. The remaining dry land acreage has slopes of up to 50 percent and would be more appropriate for open space and recreational uses. The San Pablo Peninsula is zoned for community and recreational uses, with the exception of marine or light industrial uses for Terminal 4 and Chevron’s Point Orient.
In 2003, the Richmond City Council issued a request for proposal for development of Point Molate and received seven responses. One proposal came from Chevron, which was concerned over security risks and the prospects of a major development adjacent to its refinery. The company bid $80 million on the condition that the property would remain as open space.
However, the city chose instead to negotiate with Upstream, whose bid had originally outlined a hotel-conference center and residential project. The project eventually evolved into a hotel and casino complex with Upstream offering to purchase the former Naval Fuel Depot and contribute close to $20 million to the city annually.
In 2004, the city entered into a Land Disposition Agreement (LDA) to sell the property to Upstream for $50 million and began negotiations with the firm to develop the resort hotel and casino complex. Under the conditions of the LDA, any future development of the property would include construction and maintenance of the Bay Trail along the shoreline as well as 33 acres of shoreline park and 150 acres of hillside open space with a public trail system. Over the course of the lengthy negotiations, the developer’s nonrefundable payments and deposits to the city for the right to negotiate and for extensions of the LDA grew to $15.5 million.
In 2009, the Citizens for East Shore Parks and East Bay Regional Park District filed a lawsuit against the city and the developer over environmental concerns about the development of Point Molate. The parties approved a settlement whereby Upstream would provide at least $35 million for shoreline preservation. The settlement funding was for land acquisition, and was not limited to Point Molate. It included other areas in Richmond and potentially outside of Richmond.
The settlement was contingent, however, on the casino’s construction. Voters rejected the casino proposal in the November 2010 elections by defeating Measure U. The Richmond City Council then voted against the project in April 2011 following the release of the final environmental impact report.
Richmond Mayor Tom Butt, a councilmember at the time, told Bay Crossings: “In the end, it became clear that the promise of a world-class conference center, hotel and performing arts center would just be a casino and a 4,000-space parking garage. The cash flow to the city would be a fraction of what was initially promised. Huge historic buildings would be razed and traffic would be in permanent gridlock at the bridge. It was a classic bait and switch, and we were able to see it before it was too late.”
Under the LDA, the rejection of the casino project triggered an exclusive 120-day period during which the developer could negotiate an alternative proposal. The developer instead filed a lawsuit against Richmond contending that the city violated the LDA and had not acted in good faith.
Seven of the nine counts filed by the developer in its lawsuit have been dismissed by the court. The developer then requested permission to file another amended complaint and to stay the lawsuit. The judge denied both requests on October 2, 2014. The majority of the property remains vacant today, with the exception of Building 123, but efforts to remediate and restore the site continue.
The Point Molate Community Advisory Committee was formed in 2011 to work with the Richmond City Council, citizen advisory boards and commissions to provide oversight on Point Molate matters. The committee’s work has included advising the city council on environmental remediation, land use planning and financial management.
Next month we will conclude our series by looking at what the future might hold for Richmond’s Point Molate.
Recently, a group of architectural students from the Fach Hochschule University of Applied Sciences in Lübeck, Germany visited the Bay Area. Part of their mission was to take architectural excursions to initiate experiences of other ways of thinking, living and building in different cultural contexts. They paid particular attention to the Ford Assembly Building, which was the largest assembly plant to be built on the west coast, because it is an outstanding example of 20th-century industrial architecture. Designed by Albert Kahn and known for its “daylight factory” design, which employs extensive window openings along its sawtooth roof, the almost 500,000 square foot building built in 1930 suffered structural damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The City of Richmond selected Orton Development to repair and rehabilitate the building and in 2008, SunPower and Mountain Hardware were some of the first companies to make the building their new home. The old craneway at the waterfront is now called the Craneway Pavillion, which is used for concerts, banquets, weddings and corporate events. The iconic building is also part of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park.
Professor Heiner Lipper of the Fach Hochschule Lübeck Technical School (left) with Craig Murray of the City of Richmond, during a tour of the Ford Assembly Building.
