Rockridge Home Depot thought improbable, but some still concerned

The saga of what to do with the vast, long-vacant western parking lot at what was once the Rockridge Shopping Center is no closer to being resolved than when the old shopping center was demolished more than five years ago.

The current proposal, putting up a Home Depot and a four-story parking structure on the 4.6-acre site, has been met with predictable cries of NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) from local neighborhood groups who’d rather see a mix of housing and retail. Almost like the reverse of the classic Joni Mitchell song — “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot” — there’s an elaborate plan to turn the plot into just that, but it has yet to happen.

That’s because the developer, Newport Beach-based Terramar Retail Centers (TRC), couldn’t find any anchor tenants to finance the deal. Complicating matters is that, according to news reports, the site’s owner, Alvin B. Chan Inc., specifically prohibits any residential development in its lease agreement with TRC despite the site being zoned for commercial use with some housing.

Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb, whose district includes the site, says nothing much will likely happen at the site until the Home Depot idea is “off the table. It’s got to play out.”

If Home Depot wants to give it a shot, it’s up to them. I think it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a Home Depot there,” said Kalb, who has noted that 99% of the emails he’s received about the project are opposed to it.

The proposed Home Depot’s main building would take up 102,000 square feet, include a garden center, parking for 421 cars (129 more than required) and would reportedly add up to 175 jobs to Oakland’s economy. In October, Oakland city planners ruled against the plan, though, concluding that current zoning laws did not allow for the sale of building materials, Home Depot’s main seller, at the location.

Still, the big box retailer continues to pursue the plan. Reached for comment recenlty, a Home Depot representative had “nothing to share” on the proposed store. What Kalb said he would like to see at the site is something more like what was originally on the drawing board after the old Safeway was moved to its new location next door in what’s now known as the “Shops at the Ridge.”

“I’m looking to maintain a shopping center feel in a well developed, attractive, architecturally pleasing way,” said Kalb, who added that while the housing component is important to him, he would also like to see more shopping options for Oaklanders. “People in Oakland go to Walnut Creek and Emeryville to do their shopping. We want them to come to Oakland. We’re losing tax revenue.”

The original mixed use idea floated for the western side of the lot has been compared to the retail development of Berkeley’s Fourth Street over the past several decades. What this comparison ignores, though, is that the Berkeley site has always been ripe for development. The old Rockridge Shopping Center, on the other hand, was a 1960s-style behemoth shopping plaza with the prerequisite acres of free parking. Before that it was a rock quarry. In other words, it was never a neighborhood.

Among the stores that prospered for many years at the old Rockridge Shopping Center were several “super drug stores” that were more like department stores. The original tenant of the drug store space was the largest Pay Less Drug Store in the chain.

Now closed, Pay Less, headquartered in Oregon, had more than 500 stores throughout the Northwest and California. The Rockridge store sold everything from food, clothes and shoes to fishing tackle, radios, fabric and art supplies. It even boasted a nursery and an outpost of Berkeley’s famed Top Dog hot dog empire at the entrance.

Subsequent tenants of the site included Thrifty-Pay Less (formed when Thrifty and Pay Less merged), Rite Aid and finally Longs Drugs. All the stores included a wide variety of items that made it possible for Rockridge residents to shop locally.

Families could once enjoy dinner and a movie at the center, which at one time also featured an Emil Villa’s BBQ and a thriving Straw Hat Pizza. Over on the western end there was once a movie theater, a Bank of America, a Boston Market restaurant, a standalone bank building that housed an American Savings and later a Washington Mutual branch, as well as the original Safeway.

While the Home Depot is a long way from being approved, some neighborhood advocates such as Kirk Peterson, a founder of local group Upper Broadway Advocates as well as a board member of the Rockridge Community Planning Council, are still worried it could be.

He’s so concerned that he’s even come up with his own drawings for an alternative mixed-use development. One reason Peterson cited for being on alert for Home Depot being approved is that he doesn’t necessarily trust city planners charged with reviewing the plan.

“City planning is mostly about accommodating developers,” he said.