OAKLAND GLOBAL NEWS
Monthly Updates on the Oakland Global Trade & Logistics Center Project
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Oakland Global News, September 2014
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Dear Reader,
Oakland Global News is a monthly newsletter for readers interested in staying current as the Oakland Global Trade & Logistics Center (former Oakland Army Base) project evolves.
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SF Subway Soil Comes to Oakland
Clean dirt elevates Oakland Global construction site
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SF Central Subway Construction
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For the past several weeks the Oakland Global Project has imported soil from deep beneath San Francisco’s streets in order to raise building pads so that they accommodate future construction and to protect against sea level rise.
The use of the soil, excavated as part of San Francisco’s Central Subway project, also features environmental benefits and cost savings: 1) If not for the Oakland Global project, the soil would likely be trucked to an outlying landfill site such as Livermore or Vacaville; and 2) The City of Oakland can charge the dirt depositors a “tipping” fee for dropping it at the project.
The San Francisco dirt is tested through a rigorous, multi-party process, according to Dan Nourse, who handles soils issues on the project. Ultimately approximately 200-250,000 yards of Central Subway dirt will be delivered, he said.
Nourse noted that the project needs to raise site elevations because the project property has settled during the 70+ years since it was built out as a war-time Army Base, and to keep newly-developed warehouses from flooding — even with rising sea levels, which are attributed to climate change.
The Central Subway’s tunnel digging and boring work concluded in late June 2014. In that phase, massive boring machines and workers excavated and built 8,300 linear feet of concrete-lined tunnels running from South of Market beneath Union Square and Chinatown to North Beach.
When completed in 2019, the new 1.7 mile subway will begin at street level outside the San Francisco Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets, proceed above ground to a station at Fourth and Brannan streets, and then descend into the earth beneath the Interstate 80 skyway. It will stop at underground stations at Moscone Center, Union Square and Chinatown.
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New Director for Job Resource Center
The West Oakland Job Resource Center has hired Julina Bonilla as its new program director. Bonilla has a long history of helping individuals land work in the building trades and is expected to guide the center toward fulfilling its mission of creating careers in the trades, transportation, distribution and logistics sectors for low-income and underserved Oakland residents.
Bonilla worked as a project director for the federal Job Corps program from 2008-2014 and previously served in other youth employment management positions. Responsibilities in her new job include organizational leadership and management, administration, resource development and communications.
“Job Corps training is heavily based on the construction trades, so I have a lot of experience in that area and have relationships with community partners and other resources,” said Bonilla, whose three brothers and husband have been union painters.
The Job Center developed out of community meetings related the Oakland Global project and is incorporated into the project’s binding jobs policies. The center is a collaborative effort between the City of Oakland, employers, unions, community organizations and developers. It offers career counseling, referrals to training and employment, and assistance with apprenticeship test preparation.
Despite limited staff and resources, the center has placed a significant number of Oaklanders in jobs and referred many others to services, apprenticeships and pre-apprentice programs since March 2013.
The Job Resource Center’s reporting data, which covers the period from March 2013, when the center opened, to August 2014, shows that 731 individuals attended orientations. Out of that number, 358 were screened for work history and interests and directed to social services, apprenticeship programs or employment.
Bonilla noted that a top task is to identify and gather resources that will help the center land Oakland residents employment.
“Resources can help overcome employment barriers, such as child care, driver’s licenses, criminal history expungement and housing,” Bonilla said.
Al Auletta, Program Manager for the City of Oakland Department of Economic and Workforce Development, said that Bonilla was chosen from a pool of 40 well-qualified candidates. In addition to Bonilla’s trades experience, Auletta said that she has a reputation for having strong supervisorial skills and a high level of energy.
A driving force for the job center was to help the Oakland Global project and other contractors working with city meet local hiring requirements. According to a community jobs agreement, at least 50 percent of Oakland Global project work hours must be performed by local residents; for each construction trade, 20 percent of work hours must be handled by apprentices; and at least 25 percent of work hours performed by apprentices have to be completed by disadvantaged workers.
The center is open Monday-Friday, 9a.m. – 5 p.m., West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline Street, 2nd Floor. It can be accessed by the AC Transit NL and 26 lines. Job seekers can pre-register to attend orientations by calling: 510-419-0509.
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Competitive TIGER Grant Passes on Oakland 
The City of Oakland learned earlier this month that it did not receive $16 million it had hoped to win in a competitive federal transportation grant application. The funds would have gone toward
new truck parking, ancillary maritime support facilities and wharf repairs on former Oakland Army Base property owned by the city.
The federal funds would have supplemented infrastructure improvements being made to adjacent property through the Oakland Global development project, which is a partnership between the City of Oakland, warehouse developer Prologis and California Capital and Investment Group.
The federal TIGER grant (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery), appeared to be a natural fit for the project, given its goals: Building a multi-modal logistics cluster, replacing jobs lost through the base closure, improving air quality and environmental sustainability and increasing the diversity and volume of goods moved through the Oakland waterfront. Previous TIGER grants have supported Oakland’s waterfront industry improvements, including an Army Base infrastructure master plan and a new 40-acre Port train facility.
The competition for the grant was particularly stiff as $9 billion worth of grant application projects requested funds from only $632 million available. California projects captured six of the 72 awards issued in 46 states. The only Bay Area award was $1 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to study expanding transit capacity and connectivity in the Bay Area’s rapidly growing job and housing centers – Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco.
The city’s requested funds for trucking and maritime support facilities would have added truck parking to an area that has a shortage and is expecting more activity. Meanwhile, the city is increasingly attempting to shift illegal truck parking out of West Oakland neighborhoods and onto the working waterfront. That effort goes hand-in-hand with environmental mitigations adopted as part of the Oakland Global project, including construction of 30 acres of truck parking on city and port land.
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Transportation Bond on the Ballot
Measure BB seen as necessary given growth
A half-cent sales tax, which will fund transportation upgrades and maintenance considered critical to quality of life in Alameda County, is headed to the ballot on Nov. 4 with support from the county’s 14 city councils and a long list of endorsers.
Measure BB would fund two broad categories of work over 30 years: 1) Capital projects with specific dollar amounts, including everything from expanding BART to improving pedestrian corridors; and 2) Operations and maintenance investments, such as reinstating canceled bus service and maintaining streets. Former Oakland Army Base infrastructure upgrades, including roadway and truck route improvements also could receive support.
Historically, bonds have been the county’s main source of transportation infrastructure funding. BB follows Measure B1, which in 2012 failed to obtain a necessary two-thirds majority of voters by the narrowest of margins – 0.14 of a percentage point. Unlike the previous bond measure, BB does not lock in the half-cent permanently.
The Alameda County Transportation Commission says that the new transportation tax — which is expected to raise $7.8 billion – is necessary given the county’s expected growth.
“Over the term of this plan, Alameda County’s population will grow by almost 30 percent and the senior population will double,” according to a report released in January. “This means more demand on our streets, highways and transit.
Without new funding, Alameda County will lose job opportunities, experience increased traffic on degraded streets and highways, suffer potential cuts on buses and BART and see more costly transportation services for youth, seniors and people with disabilities.”
The Measure BB campaign has been busy for the past several months raising funds, seeking endorsements, conducting community outreach and advertising, according to Chris Nelson, of Roje Consulting, an Oakland Global project consultant, which is helping to raise funds for the measure.
In addition to the city councils, the Measure’s backers include the United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County, The Sierra Club, the California Alliance for Jobs, The East Bay Regional Park District, Bike East Bay and many others. Find more information on Measure BB here: http://www.yesonbb.org/.
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As a recurring feature, the Oakland Global News presents photography from the Army Base.The photos and captions below are by Dan Nourse.
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Storm drain work; north side West Burma Rd. near Maritime Ave.
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Large beam crane transport chain holes.
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Dan Nourse, a project manager with Oakland-based Roje Consulting, focuses on Oakland Global’s environmental remediation, site elevation increase and site surcharging. Dan was instrumental in the redevelopment of Emeryville and West Oakland. He is a self-taught photographer and uses photography to capture the progress of redevelopment projects as well as producing artful images along the way.
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