Lazy reporting on Harvest Hall

by V Smoothe | October 25, 2007 | 3 comments

So I’ve tried to back off the bitching about local newspapers lately, partly because there hasn’t been too much that I’ve found super annoying, but mostly because I’m trying to move the site in a less complainy direction.

But hey – it isn’t a blog if I don’t whine about the evils of the mainstream media at least occasionally, right?

This paragraph in the Chronicle story about Harvest Hall is just the height of journalistic laziness:

The concept is more than a pretty artist’s rendering that the developer of the Jack London Square redevelopment, Ellis Partners LLC, first made in 2003 or 2004. (The dates start to run together in the minds of people engaged in a seven-year planning and permit process.)

What!? 2003 or 2004? They can’t remember? It would have been, what, too much work to take five seconds and look it up? Clearly, it’s too much to expect a reporter to glance at the date on the rendering rich 2003 Draft EIR (huge PDF!), but you’d think that maybe the quick search of the newspaper’s own archives that yields this 2003 story about the project wouldn’t have been too far beyond the call of duty. Seriously, why is that line there?

For anyone interested in how the project has developed over the past four years, but too lazy to do a Google search, I’ve compiled below a list of articles about the project that have been printed about it in local media:

Oakland’s next course: food mecca: SFBT 9/26/2003
Huge food market planned for Jack London Square: SF Chronicle 10/4/2003
Neighbors fear waterfront changes: Oakland Tribune 3/2/2004
Oakland still seeking a square deal: SFBT 10/22/2004
Jack London Square Courts Foodies: East Bay Express 11/24/2004
Developers return with fresh ideas: SFBT 11/28/2004
Retail specialist hired to lease Jack London Square food hall: SFBT 12/9/2005
No Link to Oakland project for big chains: SFBT 12/8/2006
Back to Square One: East Bay Express 8/8/2007
Oakland’s Harvest Hall will be mostly offices: SFBT 8/10/2007
Oakland’s Jack London Market moves closer to reality: Oakland Tribune: 10/23/2007
Ground broken for huge public retail market at Jack London Square: SF Chronicle 10/23/2007

I’m really glad they dropped that Chef’s Hall of Fame. Yikes!

Oh, and as long as I’m talking about Jack London Square, I may as well mention that Joie de Vivre is taking over Jack’s Bistro as of November 1st. Jack’s is…well, I’ll just say that it isn’t really my scene. But Joie de Vivre has a nice track record with restaurants, so this is very exciting. I’m not holding my breath for our very own Cortez or anything, but hopefully we’ll see a marked improvement after the renovation?

3 Responses to “Lazy reporting on Harvest Hall”

1
danny Says:
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
I actually live in JLS and I’m nervous that they will still mess this up. the developer has been driving business OUT of JLS (see articles about high rent) and has yet to bring in anything to replace the empty store fronts.

it looks like they will build the absolute minimum number of buildings they are contracted to (two to start the rest I think they have a decade to finish) and have no published plan on how they will fill the hall with anything related to food. I fear they will just complete it and turn it into office space and then sell the whole thing to someone else.

I’ll hope for the best, but it certainly doesn’t look like they are really going to try and make something unique.
2
snappingturtle Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 1:39 am
V or anyone –
Are you aware of any news on how this project is doing in terms of leasing? For the market, not the office, although i’d love it if my office moved there from sterile Watergate in Emeryville.
3
Joanna/OnTheGoJo Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Snappy -

JLS has completed the refurbishment of 66 Franklin, which I’m told is 100% full in the office space from the 2nd floor and up. There is a deal in the works with Miette for a major portion or all of the ground floor, but I do not believe that it has been finalized just yet. Here’s a link to a story on that:

http://www.sfchroniclemarketplace.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/16/FD0I101UMJ.DTL (2nd story in the article)

JLS has also completed Site C, which is the new 2-story building in front of the ferry terminal. They have leased all of the 2nd floor office space, but have not yet lined up tenant(s) for the ground floor retail/restaurant space.

Work on the Bay Trail has been done in some areas, and is in progress in other areas.

If you haven’t been to the Square recently, you’ll be shocked to see the behemoth of the Jack London Market. (prev known as Harvest Hall and also known as Site F1) At the moment I’m brain dead, so don’t quote me, but I think there are four or five floors of office space and one or two floors of retail space. I do not believe they have any signed deals just yet, but I am told that they do have people that are interested. If you look at their website, there’s a rendering of the market on the bottom right: http://jacklondonsquare.com/ There is also a link on their site to contact them if you are interested in leasing.

Also started is the parking garage on the Amtrak parking lot, known as Site G. The parking garage, JLS Market, and new pedestrian bridge are both tentatively scheduled to complete at the same time in early 2009. The garage will have 1086 parking spaces and will have 30K square feet of retail space on the ground floor (hopefully a grocery store).

Not started within the JLS Redevelopment plan are:

Site D, originally touted as an art house movie theatre, but now likely to be office space. This building is part of the minimum project (it has to be started by 2010) and is currently planned to be 7 stories with a max height of 140 feet.

Site F2, currently a parking lot, will be office space & parking adjacent to JLS Market on Embarcadero. Max height is 125 feet.

Site F3, where trees are now on Alice at the waterfront. This is the hotel site. 13 stories and 175 feet high.

Pavillion, 15K sq feet of retail space to go in front of Barnes & Noble (facing Karibu, Murasaki, & Edible Arrangements) – single story.

Simon hasn’t updated the JLDA site in a few months, but here is info on current projects in the Jack London District: http://jlda.org/development/

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