Title
PLN24-0434 - Use Permit and Design Review - 2350 Saratoga Street (Alameda Point, Building 8) - Applicant: Jonah Hendrickson on behalf of Alameda Point Redevelopers. Public hearing to consider an application pursuant to Alameda Municipal Code (AMC) sections 30-21.3 (Use Permit) and 30-37 (Design Review) to alter the area in front of Building 8 at 2350 Saratoga Street, a contributing structure within the NAS Alameda Historic District, by installing an outdoor dining facility that includes a semi-permanent structure, as well as temporary structures, fences, landscaping, paving, lighting and furniture and mobile food trucks.
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CITY OF ALAMEDA
PLANNING BOARD
USE PERMIT AND DESIGN REVIEW
STAFF REPORT
ITEM NO: 5-B
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION: PLN24-0434 - Use Permit and Design Review - 2350 Saratoga Street (Alameda Point, Building 8) - Applicant: Jonah Hendrickson on behalf of Alameda Point Redevelopers. Public hearing to consider an application pursuant to Alameda Municipal Code (AMC) sections 30-21.3 (Use Permit) and 30-37 (Design Review) to alter the area in front of Building 8 at 2350 Saratoga Street, a contributing structure within the NAS Alameda Historic District, by installing an outdoor dining facility that includes a semi-permanent structure, as well as temporary structures, fences, landscaping, paving, lighting and furniture and mobile food trucks.
GENERAL PLAN: Alameda Point, Mixed Use, Adaptive Reuse Subarea
ZONING: AP-AR (Alameda Point, Adaptive Reuse) Zoning District
ENVIRONMENTAL
DETERMINATION: The City of Alameda certified the Alameda Point Final EIR (State Clearinghouse No. 201312043), which evaluated the environmental impacts of redevelopment and reuse of the lands at Alameda Point. This project is evaluated in light of the mitigation measures and design guidelines from the EIR. No further environmental review is required for this project.
PROJECT PLANNER: Steven Buckley, Planning Services Manager
PUBLIC NOTICE: A notice for this hearing was mailed to property owners and residents within 300 feet of the site, published in local newspapers and posted in public areas near the subject property. Staff has not received any public comments on this proposed project.
EXHIBITS: 1. Project Plans
2. Draft Resolution
3. NAS Alameda Color Palette
RECOMMENDATION: Approve the project with conditions.
PROJECT SUMMARY:
Development History
On April 5, 2016, the Alameda City Council approved a lease with purchase option with Alameda Point Redevelopers, LLC, the project applicant, for 4.07 acres of property at Alameda Point. The property includes the 270,000-square-foot, four-story Building 8 at 2350 Saratoga Street at Alameda Point. Building 8 is a contributor to the Naval Air Station Alameda (NAS Alameda) Historic District (Historic District), and it has been vacant since the Navy’s departure in 1996. The applicant is proposing to invest approximately $26.5 million to restore the building and has begun work on the building’s interior.
On October 6, 2016, the Historical Advisory Board (HAB) approved a Certificate of Approval for the proposed changes to the building and found that the proposed changes were consistent with the Secretary of Interior Standards for the rehabilitation of historic structures.
On October 24, 2016, the Planning Board approved a Development Plan, Design Review and Use Permit to rehabilitate and adaptively reuse the building for approximately 83,420 square feet of commercial and light industrial maker uses on the ground floor, up to 88 Work/Live units on the second and third floors and a small 4,000-square-foot penthouse plus a 36,000-square-foot outdoor deck on the fourth floor.
On November 11, 2019, the City Council adopted Ordinance 3255, which amended the City’s Work/Live Unit Ordinance to modify development standards. Specifically, the maximum number of units, 1 work/live unit per 2,000 square feet of lot area, was deleted and no maximum number of work/live units per property were established. Additionally, the minimum size of a work/live unit was reduced from 1,000 square feet to 500 square feet, and the maximum permitted living space was set at 30% of the floor area or 400 square feet, whichever is less. The City Council adopted the Ordinance to expand small business opportunities in Alameda.
On December 10, 2019, the applicant submitted an application to remove Conditions #3a and #13 from Use Permit (PLN16-0468) entirely, and revise Condition #3b to be consistent with the Work/Live Ordinance amendments that were adopted after the project was originally approved. The project approval was amended by removing the 1,000 square foot minimum work/live unit size so that the project will have flexibility to cater to small businesses, resulting in more units being built into the same space, up to a total of 200 units in the building.
Since then, the project has been under construction, with nearly all of the units completed. Most of the work/live units are occupied by residents with small businesses and several ground floor spaces have been converted to solely commercial use including offices, restaurants and retail, as allowed by the Alameda Point zoning district. An informal outdoor dining area has been established in the lawn area in front of the building, using picnic tables, barrels and rope as a way to define a seating area for the adjacent restaurants and use by residents.
Planning Context
Outdoor business activity requires a Use Permit and landscape/structural improvements require Design Review, which are considered by the Planning Board. The site’s existing restaurants are approved uses in the building and have obtained Use Permits for alcoholic beverage service. The outdoor area would provide additional seating and food service / alcoholic beverage consumption areas, with proper constraints on the construction, hours of business, and overall operations.
The outdoor improvements also require approval from the Historical Advisory Board (HAB) because the site is within the Alameda Point Historic District and are on a contributing site adjacent to a contributing building, as discussed in more detail below.
From an economic development perspective, restaurants like Saltbreaker are an important amenity and building block for the growth and sustainable development of Alameda Point. Since its opening in 2023, Saltbreaker has been the first and only sit-down, table-service restaurant at Alameda Point. It offers a more traditional dining experience where patrons are seated at a table and provided service by dedicated waitstaff. Sit-down restaurants broaden the eating options at Alameda Point for different needs, preferences, and occasions, from business meetings to family dinners.
The patio is an essential step for Saltbreaker to expand its ambiance to formalized outdoor eating and to increased visibility. All the nearby eating and drinking establishments have outdoor venues: they are central and popular elements that allow people to enjoy the moderate weather and the unique atmosphere of being outdoors on the former naval base.
Humble Sea, a beer merchant, and a proposed new wine bar, Vinyl, are also eligible to use the outdoor area, in combination with a food truck, which would support the area’s economic development.
Proposed Project
The proposal is to alter the area in front of Building 8 at 2350 Saratoga Street, a contributing structure within the NAS Alameda Historic District, by installing an outdoor dining facility that includes a semi-permanent structure, as well as temporary structures, fences, landscaping, paving, lighting and furniture and mobile food trucks, as shown in Exhibit 1.
Building 8 was constructed in 1940 as a large three-story general storehouse constructed of concrete with concrete towers, industrial metal sash windows, and loading bays. Building 8 shares many structural elements with buildings in the Administrative Core area, including its flat roof, smooth concrete finish, and horizontal emphasis, with vertical accents at the entries, with a curving concrete canopy at the loading docks area. There is also a curved element at the main entry and steel personnel doors, some of which have been modified. It measures 500 ft. long by 180 ft. wide by 39 ft. tall, enclosing about 270,000 sq.ft. of floor area over a basement / crawl space. It has been renovated over the past five years into a work-live complex with up to 200 units and up to 15,000 sq.ft. of ground floor commercial space.
There are large expanses of paved parking lots to the north and south of the building immediately adjacent to the loading docks and there is a lawn area in front of the building facing Saratoga Street where the traditional main entrance was located. The lawn is the location of the proposed project.
Historic Evaluation
The character defining features of Building 8 include the flat roof, smooth concrete finish, and horizontal emphasis, with vertical accents at the entries, with a curving concrete canopy at the loading docks area, the curved element at the main entry and steel personnel doors, some of which have been modified to accommodate the development as a work-live project with ground floor retail and restaurants.
The project would not modify any features of the building. The outdoor dining facility would primarily include landscape features and temporary elements such as fences, hedges, trellis / canopies, lighting, pervious paving and similar elements, and food trucks. One semi-permanent structure, a converted shipping container, would serve as an outdoor kitchen / bar and restroom facility.
The site improvements would be deferential to the historic building by being symmetrically placed, leaving an open lawn in front of the historic main entrance, developed at a pedestrian-level scale, and would be removable in the future.
The project would retain and preserve the historic designed landscape’s orthogonal layout - the geometric design created by the perpendicular alignment of roads into rectilinear blocks, and the arrangement of buildings and siting of sidewalks/paths parallel and perpendicular to main roads. This includes taking into consideration the layout of roads, sidewalks, primary and secondary paths and buildings.
The Historical Advisory Board is reviewing the project for conformance with the Historic Preservation Ordinance on November 7, 2024. Staff will provide an update on the outcome of that hearing to the Planning Board at the November 12, 2024 hearing.
Use Permit / Design Review Considerations
The project was reviewed by an interdepartmental group of City staff on October 9, 2024. Feedback included suggestions that the fence/planters should be designed to provide more visibility into the site, possibly with a transparent panel (tempered glass or similar) with a light steel frame reminiscent of the windows on the building, replacing the proposed trees along the street frontage with low ground cover because they encroach into a utility easement that prohibits trees, and limiting outdoor fire pits. A color palette has been adopted for the NAS Alameda adaptive reuse area, which should also guide final design of the shipping container and the enclosing fences, planters and accessories such as umbrellas. (See Exhibit 3) The proposed food trucks also raised concerns about the manner in which utilities would be provided and waste would be managed, such as water and power, gray water, and trash disposal. Conditions of approval are provided in the draft resolution to address these concerns, as is the staff analysis of the necessary findings for approval; see Exhibit 2.
RECOMMENDATION:
Conduct a public hearing, make findings regarding CEQA and zoning / design review compliance, and approve the project subject to conditions of approval.