Alameda Point

Closed in 1997, the former Alameda Naval Air Station is an immense 1560 acres, and now comprised mostly of abandoned buildings, peppered with a few businesses & tenants throughout, and with sweeping views on the Bay and Downtown San Francisco.

Since 2000, the city of Alameda has been planning the redevelopment of the former Naval Air Station, now known as Alameda Point. Complicating the redevelopment are several constraints: land-use constraints consisting of Tidelands Trust; soil and groundwater contamination; wildlife refuge buffer requirements; geotechnical issues; 100-year flood plans; institutional and contractual constraints with Alameda Measure A, the Alameda Naval Air Station Historic District and existing residents and leases (from Wikipedia).

In the Bay Area, which is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis that has driven rents sky high and where space is at a premium, it is unusual, and eerie, to see such an expansive and open area so vacant and withering in decay, yet somewhat understandable given the complexities of bureaucracy and redevelopment.

Plate 01

Plate 01