Top photo courtesy of Fox Oakland Theater Restoration Project.

The theater we know as the Fox Oakland is actually the second theater in Oakland to bear that title. The first Fox, which opened on August 25, 1923, had 2,561 seats located at 1730 Broadway, occupying the long horizontal parcel that is now home to the Community Bank of the Bay. By 1925, the “first Fox” became an Orpheum, although Fox retained ownership for most of the life of the theater. Orpheum had previously used the theater at 574 12th Street, which was renamed the Twelfth Street Theater after Orpheum relocated; the Twelfth Street Theater was later demolished, and is now the site of the Federal Building’s south tower. The Fox Orpheum at 1730 Broadway was also demolished, in the 1960s during the construction of BART, long after it had closed. The Fox Oakland that still stands today opened at 1819 Telegraph Avenue on October 27, 1928, greeted by some 20,000 eager patrons on that day. With 3,338 seats, it was the largest theater on the West Coast when it opened; it remained one of the largest, but its title was supplanted in 1929 when the mammoth San Francisco Fox opened, and again in 1931, when Oakland’s slightly larger Paramount Theater opened. Both the 1928 Fox and the original 1923 Fox Orpheum were designed by San Francisco architecture firm Weeks and Day, who designed a handful of other Bay Area landmarks, including the California Theater in San Jose, and the Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Sir Francis Drake hotels in San Francisco. Maury Diggs was responsible for the construction of Fox Oakland and also designed the theater’s retail wings; other notable projects Diggs worked on in the Bay Area include the Latham Square Building at 1611 Telegraph, San Quentin Prison, Golden Gate Fields, and Bay Meadows. While the 1923 Fox Orpheum was conceived in an 18th century French style, the 1928 Fox Oakland had more unusual, exotic design that drew on Indian, Moorish, and Middle Eastern influences — enough so that the theater was supposed to be named the Bagdad, but then was simply named the Fox in 1929 when Fox merged with the West Coast theater chain. Fox Oakland was capped off with a dome, and it featured a Wurlitzer organ that was sold in 1960; the organ is now located in Shingletown, California.

San Francisco Fox (1350 Market Street). Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.

Fox Oakland remained a popular entertainment destination for Oaklanders for a few decades after its opening, but theater patronage declined in the 1960s. Although there were occasional shows at the Fox into the 1970s, regular shows ceased in 1966, which is the typically-reported closure year. Timothy Pflueger’s Art Deco masterpiece, the Paramount Theater, followed suit, closing in 1970. The Paramount, though, was saved by the Oakland Symphony. It reopened and was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 — the very year that the Fox was the target of an arson fire. But Fox Oakland persevered. San Francisco also had a Fox Theater, located at 1350 Market Street (built in 1929, one year after Oakland’s) with 4,651 seats. In November 1961, over 59% of San Franciscans voted against Proposition I, whose passage would have authorized the city to acquire the theater, and thereby preserve it for future generations as a cultural and convention center. The San Francisco Fox was closed and demolished in 1963, and replaced in 1966 with the 29-story, 354-foot eyesore known as Fox Plaza. Little sign of the theater remains: save the namesake, and a half-hearted memorial on the ground floor of Fox Plaza. Oakland, too, experienced pressure to demolish its Fox, as in 1975, when the City of Oakland considered demolishing the theater to make way for a parking lot. But Oakland, unlike San Francisco, withstood the demolition pressure and held onto its Fox, and Oakland is much the better for it. Uptown is particularly lucky to have not just the Fox, but also the Paramount — two grand theaters in such close proximity, which, combined hold roughly six thousand patrons. In 1978, the DeLucchis and the Goodhues purchased Fox Oakland, with the hope that it might one day be restored; that same year, the theater was declared a city landmark under Mayor Lionel Wilson, and in 1979, it was entered on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1996, under Mayor Elihu Harris, the City of Oakland purchased the theater for $3 million. In 1999, the slow, expensive process of restoration began to trickle in, and in 2001, the dilapidated marquee and blade sign were replaced, as a public gesture to demonstrate commitment to the Fox. But without the superhuman commitment of Phil Tagami, it is unlikely that this treasure would have been restored in the same way or in the same amount of time. Early in the process, the restoration plan was scaled back to cut costs; under that plan, the Fox, which once had almost 3,400 seats, would have had only several hundred seats restored. The Fox surely deserved better, and Tagami led the charge to pull together over $70 million of funds from various sources, including the City of Oakland and Bank of America, that were ultimately necessary to fully restore Fox Oakland to its former grandeur.

The Uptown (top) and The Grand (bottom).

The Oakland School for the Arts will be housed behind the restored Fox Theater, adjacent to Fox Courts, which is a mixed-use project that will add retail and 80 units of affordable housing. Altogether, these projects are a major development that will enliven the block bounded by 18th, 19th, Telegraph, and San Pablo. But this block is only one part of the changing face of the Uptown District. Much of the Uptown triangle, once characterized by parking lots that blighted the urban landscape, has now been filled in with the first phase of The Uptown, mixed-use project with 665 residential units. And while there are aspects to this development that we might criticize  — including a limited initial retail component, unambitious height in a location just steps from BART, and somewhat of a master-planned design feel, though less so than once conceived — the Uptown still adds open space, some retail, and more residents to Downtown. Meanwhile, a new dense residential district is taking shape near Broadway and Valdez Street, currently anchored by the first phases of 2300 Broadway and the Broadway-Grand, as well as Oakland’s newest high-rise, The Grand — all of which are just a short stroll from the Fox Theater. The Uptown, 2300 Broadway, and Broadway-Grand all have second phases, which combined would add several hundred additional units and close to 50,000 additional square feet of retail; still further projects in the area have been in the pipeline, and even once those are built out, nearby vacant lots remain that would be ideal locations for more mid- to high-rise residential projects with ground floor retail. And one day in the future, if the advice of the Conley Report is heeded, a retail district might replace the remaining car dealerships on the Broadway Auto Row, just to the north of the Broadway-Grand development. This would not only extend Downtown’s reach northward, but would also fill a long-standing void, by restoring to Oakland a vibrant central retail district of regional importance, which the city has notably lacked since the once-thriving retail along Broadway dried up. With some vision, this part of central Oakland could transform from sheer unrealized potential into a first-class urban destination. The Fox Theater is a particularly special component, to be sure, but it is just the beginning.

Downtown Oakland, like so many other American urban centers, has suffered from neglect during the past few decades, and it now struggles to reinvent itself in a new context. The Fox Theater managed to retain its prime spot at the bottom of Telegraph Avenue throughout most of the 20th century, and into the 21st century, watching the city around it change from bustling metropolis to near-abandoned ghost-town, and watching nearby storefronts be emptied out and boarded up. And yet, given Downtown’s many physical attributes — a handsome cityscape punctuated by delightful juxtapositions of old and new, formed by a collection of unique and distinctive districts; a central location with robust transportation access; and a palpable connection to the Bay Area’s surrounding natural beauty, both on the shores of Lake Merritt and through glimpses between high-rises of green hillsides in the distance — perhaps it is no small wonder that so many people in the Bay Area, and even within Oakland itself, have been perfectly willing to live out their days without making this evolving urban treasure a part of their lives. To be sure, fully revitalizing Downtown is a multidisciplinary task that exceeds city planners alone, and it is bigger than any single development project. But the restoration of the Fox Theater exemplifies what creative minds and committed civic pride can accomplish. Oakland could use more of both these days, as some of the current crop of city politicians (starting with the chief executive and his poorly-chosen appointment to the City Administrator post) do little to inspire confidence in the future. Indeed, it can sometimes be tempting to reminisce on decades long gone — when Broadway and Telegraph were vibrant, lined with theaters and active retail uses, and the streets were crowded with both people and streetcars — as opposed to the somewhat forlorn feeling Downtown sometimes still exudes today. But why should we fixate exclusively on the past? We’re sure of it: Downtown’s best days lie ahead, and it is both exciting and somehow comforting that the Fox Theater will play a key role in ushering in the renaissance.

Then and now: looking north up Telegraph toward the Fox, from Latham Square.

The other piece of news is the start of service on the new 74X line, a.k.a. CultureBus, a special service line that will link museums and other cultural institutions that are dispersed across San Francisco. The line will be introduced this week in order to usher in the opening of the new Academy of Sciences next week, on September 27. Fare — which is valid on the 74X for one full day — is $7 for adults, $5 for youth and seniors, and $3 with a Fast Pass. Service runs between about 8:40 am and 5:50 pm, on 20-minute headways. The line travels between Howard & New Montgomery and Golden Gate Park; along the way, it stops at the cluster of museums in the Yerba Buena District, at Union Square, and at the Asian Art Museum. Outbound buses then express to Golden Gate Park. The bus does not serve the more remotely-located Legion of Honor. Click here to see a list of inbound and outbound stops on the 74X.

Service will be run on special, branded vehicles — yellow, no less, so they will probably be difficult to miss. SFMTA anticipates pretty light ridership: about 20-30 riders per bus.  The success of the new line is premised on the assumption that enough people are visiting multiple museums in a single day, in order to make the expensive fare worthwhile — and perhaps it is also premised on the assumption that riders are not sufficiently familiar with Muni to realize that the cultural institutions along the route are already well-served by much less expensive (although locally-serving) transit. It would be interesting to investigate the extent to which ridership would increase by anchoring this line at a regional rail node. One nice service option might be to coordinate service with the hourly northbound Caltrain arrivals on the weekend, depending on how many riders that connection would attract. Also: while the 74X route waffles within a few blocks of the BART subway, it does not actually stop directly at a station.

If you have an opportunity to ride the CultureBus this weekend, please write back with your experience!

The new Museum is situated off of Yerba Buena Alley, directly behind the beautiful 1872/1906 landmark St. Patrick’s Catholic Church on Mission Street. The Museum fronts onto Jessie Square and is set back from Mission Street itself. The 63,000 square foot building consists of two starkly contrasted sections. The western half is the large blue steel cube, a chameleon of sorts whose exact hue is designed to shift according to weather and the time of day. The eastern half is an adaptive reuse of the 1907 brick landmark Jessie Street Power Substation, which has not been used by PG&E for close to fifty years. The building was designed by Willis Polk, who is perhaps more well-known for designing the Palace of Fine Arts and the famous glass curtain walls of the Hallidie Building on Sutter Street.

The opening of the Museum’s new home is only the latest chapter in a redevelopment plan that has taken decades to be fully realized. Plans to redevelop the Yerba Buena District in South of Market began in the 1950′s, but San Franciscans did not vote to approve a convention center in the area until Proposition S in the November 2, 1976 election (FYI: that link opens a rather large PDF). The first section of Moscone Center opened in 1981, but a greater flurry of activity followed in the 1990′s. A decade after the first section of Moscone opened, the convention center was expanded with the Esplanade Ballroom and the Moscone North part of the complex, with Moscone West added in 2003 to bring a total of two million square feet of convention center space to the area. After the opening of the initial sections of Moscone, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts followed in 1993, the Museum of Modern Art opened in 1995, and the much-maligned Metreon arrived in 1999. SFMOMA remains the centerpiece museum of the district, although it is accompanied by several others, including MoAD (Museum of the African Diaspora), the Cartoon Art Museum, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, and, of course, now the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Meanwhile, plans to build a new home for the Mexican Museum across Jessie Square from the Jewish Museum are on hold. In the past couple years, the boundaries of this active cultural/commercial district South of Market have been creeping in a westward direction, with the opening of the Westfield Center and the Intercontinental Hotel on the east side of 5th Street — and there are plans for the west side of 5th Street, where the Old Mint Building is planned to house the Museum of San Francisco and the Bay Area, the American Money Museum, and a new visitors center to replace the one that is currently at Hallidie Plaza.

Although South of Market has more than its fair share of regional landmarks, this section of the city noticeably lacks public open space that interacts and synergizes with the life of the street. In that sense, the new Mint Plaza will be a welcome addition. The stark, simple design suggests that the plaza will not attract visitors of its own accord:

Rather, the vitality of this public space will depend on a critical mass of activity generated by the uses surrounding it. For the time being, that activity will largely be generated by Westfield shoppers, people who work in the area, and patrons of the commercial space ringing the plaza, once those storefronts are filled. However, Mint Plaza’s success will not truly be tested until the Mint building officially opens in 2011. By then, it will hopefully be a pleasant place to linger and enjoy one of San Francisco’s foremost civic spaces.

Rendering courtesy The Mint Project.

Where else could I start this post but with Uptown? For many years, the City of Oakland has been trying to redevelop this substantial chunk of land, a triangular region bounded by Telegraph and San Pablo, located south of 20th Street and north of City Center — but the area stubbornly resisted any sort of development. In some sense, both the trials and successes of downtown Oakland’s revitalization are reflected in the ebb and flow of Uptown; downtown can never be fully revitalized unless Uptown is vibrant. The city went through a few different plans for Uptown at different times — including, at one point, a possible new ballpark for the Oakland A’s — but ended up settling on a mixed-use development, a choice that is well-suited to this highly transit-oriented location, just steps from the 19th Street BART station and a slew of bus lines. Given the excellent location, I would have preferred to see a much denser development than the one which is being constructed, but it is actually a relief to see that this chunk of land, downtown’s largest hole, is at long last being given new life.

The Uptown project, carried out by Forest City, will be built in phases. The first phase consists of 9,000 square feet of retail and 665 rental units in a few low- to mid-rise buildings. Check out the website for a rendering, and here are a few photos, taken from different corners of the project site, depicting the current state of construction:

100 Grand Avenue, at the corner of Webster, will be a new high-rise addition to the Valdez section of downtown, just a few blocks from the large Uptown development. The structure will have a few terraced heights to reduce bulk, but it will include a 22-story tower and will add 238 rental units and 5,415 square feet of retail space to the emerging Uptown area. The left image below is a photo of the poster rendering hanging at the construction site, and the right picture shows the construction:

Left image is a photo of a rendering from Essex Property Trust.

The first phase of Broadway Grand adds 132 units and 22,000 square feet of retail to the northern edge of downtown, once again quite close to both 100 Grand and the centerpiece Uptown project. Phase 2 is planned to add 367 units and 27,700 square feet of retail to the area:

The next project, nine-story 2100 Franklin, is downtown Oakland’s first office construction since 555 City Center was completed in 2002. The building is connected to existing the 2101 Webster building, and the two buildings together form “Center 21″. 2100 Franklin has a long, narrow shape because of the constraints of the site. The curved blue glass shows distorted reflections of nearby buildings on Lake Merritt:

The Ellington, rising on Broadway between 2nd and 3rd Streets, will add 134 units and 11,197 square feet of retail to the Jack London Square area. The developers of this project, Molasky Pacific, are also planning another high-rise next to 100 Grand. The left image below is the rendering:

Left image courtesy Molasky Pacific Property.

Located along Broadway between 6th and 7th Streets at the edge of Chinatown, the new 8 Orchids building adds 157 units in 11 stories, along with 6,400 square feet of retail. The front of the building faces 7th Street (top left picture below), with the bulk of the building shifted towards Broadway (top right picture below). The unfortunate result of this design is that the building turns its back on the intersection of 7th and Broadway (bottom picture below):

There are also a few projects being constructed in Old Oakland/City Center area. 901 Jefferson is a 75-unit mixed use building. The left image is a rendering, and the right image depicts the current state of construction:

Left image courtesy Pyatok Architects.

Right next to 901 Jefferson is Market Square, a two-phased project that adds 202 housing units in the block bounded by Clay, Jefferson, 8th, and 9th Streets. The first phase was completed some time ago, but the second phase of construction is nearing completion. Some variation in color and features helps to mitigate the monotony that is often a problem in these “master planned” developments:

The 7-story City Walk project would add 252 units of housing to the T-10 block of City Center, in the shadow of the Federal Building twin towers,

but a few weeks ago, the Business Times reported that Olson Company, City Walk’s developer, has placed a construction freeze on the project.

Although these construction progress reports tend to focus on housing and office construction, I must mention two major cultural buildings set to open downtown in the next couple of years. One of these buildings is the Cathedral of Christ the Light, a basket-shaped structure rising on the shores of Lake Merritt, in front of the Ordway Building at the corner of Grand and Harrison. Saint Francis de Sales, a building dating from 1893, formerly served as the cathedral for the Oakland Diocese, until that structure was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The church was subsequently demolished, because the diocese could not afford to restore the structure and carry out the necessary seismic updates. The Cathedral of Christ the Light, currently under construction, is the replacement cathedral:

When I first saw renderings of this cathedral, I was pleased to see that a more contemporary structure would soon be gracing the shores of Lake Merritt, the curve of the building a nice foil to the nearby Kaiser Center. I was equally excited to finally see the last of that parking lot in front of Ordway. Now that the building is going up, though, I’m not quite as convinced. Perhaps its magic can only be unlocked upon completion. An office or residential tower might have been more appropriate for this location, but this cathedral will be an interesting addition.

The second cultural building to mention here is the landmark Fox Theater. Originally opened in 1929, this theater has been dormant since 1963, but it is finally set to reopen, hopefully next year. The theater is in the process of being restored to its former glory:

The theater building will also house the Oakland School for the Arts. In addition, a new building (Fox Courts) with 80 units of affordable housing and 4,800 square feet of retail will be built behind the theater. Here is a rendering of that project:

Image courtesy Resources for Community Development.

It is nothing short of criminal that this gorgeous theater has sat unused for decades, but we are lucky that it has not suffered the fate of so many other old theaters, i.e. demolition. When it reopens, this jewel of the Uptown District will fill a crucial hole and add a new touch of vitality to the neighborhood.