The shuttered Church’s Chicken shack at 345 East 18th Street, which is two blocks from the southeastern shore of Oakland’s Lake Merritt, is back on the market with a $1,999,999 price tag having failed to find a buyer last year.
The corner parcel, which has since been stripped of its official signage, painted and re-tagged, is zoned for a mixed-use development up to 45 feet in height.
At the same time, apparently Starbucks and Taco Bell have since expressed interest in leasing the existing space.
Honestly Starbucks and Taco Bell? Would be nice to have a multistory mixed-use building here with an attractive street face (i.e. not a drive-thru)
The existing drive-thru is the specific reason that both Starbucks and Taco Bell have expressed an interest in the site.
Although this is probably the point where the usual suspect(s) make a call for some inappropriate development, I think “jwb” may be thinking of something along the lines of what used to grace the intersection. That is actually the opposite corner – THIS one was the edge of a streetcar yard, I believe – but I think the idea is clear enough.
CORRECTION: it seems that (even) historically it was as dismal as now, but that’s no excuse…’bout time for an upgrade, I think!
Does the City of Oakland have code enforcement. Why are the graffiti vandals allowed to deface every Oakland property under transition? Come on people do your jobs and show some respect for the neighborhoods.
Since it’s in transition, the property owner would probably rather pay the enforcement fine and let the graffiti sit, than pay someone to paint over the graffiti, only to have it tagged again.
Despite the economic boom, Oakland is still not a wealthy city by a long shot. Graffiti abatement is funded by the General Fund and the General Fund is under a lot of stress. Make your voice known during budget deliberations if you have a strong view.
Actually graffiti abatement (on private property) is the responsibility of the property owner…so perhaps you mean this an enforcement funding issue. And Oakland has quite a bit of money, but – as w/ so many cities in California – too much of it’s being spent on overtime and lavish retirement plans.
The problem with the City of Oakland is that they are not proactive and rely on a complaint driven system instead of patrolling business districts and taking care of small problems before they become large blighted problems.
After a while people become accustomed to the graffiti and blight and no one complains. The current City Manager did a great job maintaining Emeryville but now has so may people under her with “assistant” titles, who sit at their desks, instead of monitoring what’s going on in the neighborhoods.
Oakland has a whole lot of revenue coming to city government. There have been so many commercial real estate transactions as well as a huge increase in property values in recent years. Oakland residents are also heavily taxed. This passing the buck, waiting for complaints system, should not be tolerated.
In my opinion, Oakland’s biggest problem is its city government.
I live in that neighborhood. The graffiti gets painted; it comes back. It gets painted over; it comes back. Etc.
C’mon, give them a a chance. The Raiders aren’t even out of their hair yet.
E. Gonsalves, making the case for bringing Bratton-esque “broken windows” policing to Oaktown. Gutsy.
Not really about policing. If we had a police force that actually patrolled these vandals would no be running amok. This is about the City of Oakland taking some pride in the city and enforcing ordinances and codes throughout the city. People pay taxes and the city should maintain the neighborhoods. It’s no rocket science.
“The City of Oakland” is not a human being that can feel any emotions like “pride”.
There is no real agency in your statement.
The property owner could take pride. The bored illiterate youths who buy into gangsta culture could take pride in their neighborhoods. The City leaders could make this a priority and impose more fines or conduct other enforcement actions, but at what cost to other enforcement priorities.
As for “Notcom”, his only goal seems to be that city workers in Oakland exist as impoverished servants to their betters in the tech world. Hence his constant calls for pay cuts and eviscerating pensions.
Constant? I’m flattered that my posts seem to have left such an impression on you, but I think I’ve brought up the issue of pension about 3-4 times during the past year, and for a variety of agencies, not Oakland alone.
But since you prolonged the topic, my philosophy is pretty clear: I think everyone should have a fair retirement, not too little and not too much; no one should get more than – say – $100K (and even that seems too high: the point of a pension is to provide security, not continued enrichment) That we have a situation like this is absurd, and while Chief Reed’s situation is not (necessarily) typical, that it even occurs is evidence of a broken system.
The City of Oakland is supposed to be representative of the people of Oakland. The City politicians, staff, and workers, should all take pride in the city and make sure it is clean, safe, and well maintained at every level.
REPRESENTATIVE OF OAKLAND…not just of you.
Yo Quiero Taco Bell
Best reply of this entire thread.
It’s a GOOGLE STREETVIEW folks. The building has been cleaned up several times since the Googlemobile drove past. As of today the tagging is still painted over. It does suck that tagging is such a huge problem in Oakland. It’s become this. It wasn’t like this before Occupy. I see the tagging crews all the time and they look like the aimless suburban punks I grew up with in the Tri Valley, not disadvantaged Oakland youth.
Yes, they wouldn’t do this in Dublin or Walnut Creek. It’s a disgrace what Oakland tolerates. Glad to hear that the property is being kept graffiti free for now. The solution is a nice multi story apartment building with ground floor retail.
My coworker’s son was slapped with felony vandalism and had to serve months in jail for tagging in Concord. He has not since tagged anything… in Concord.
Our District Attorney Nancy O’Malley only cares about how her hometown of Alameda looks. Oakland is the playground for east bay vandals. There are no repercussions. They even tag directly across from OPD headquarters.
Dont care what ‘they’ do in Concord. WE don’t want our youth “locked up for months” for tagging buildings. All you people know is police culture.
I live in West Oakland and the majority of taggers I have seen look like hipsters and suburban jerk-offs who drive into the neighborhood to act out. I would love to see more proactive enforcement by the police, certainly enough to put the word out that taggers risk getting caught, and if they do they will do some jail time. At a certain point, it is unfair to ask the same property owners to undertake the hassle and expense of remediation when they have no ability to control the problem.
Exactly, the responsibility goes first to the tagged for vandalizing public and private property. After that it would be OPD and the District Attorney for allowing the taggers to get away with defacing Oakland. The last link of responsibility would be DPW for not abating the graffiti in a timely and consistent manner. The property owners are actually the initial victims who then have a certain responsibility to their neighborhoods to do the right thing and clean up the graffiti as soon as possible.
I hope it doesn’t become something that further gentrifies the neighborhood.