Lake Merrit Station Area Plan and Victory Court

Big thanks to VSmoothe at AbetterOakland for putting this up on facebook or I would have never found out about it.

On Wednesday night, there was a meeting about the Lake Merritt Station Area Plan. As you can see in the map provided on the Website, (http://www.business2oakland.com/lakemerrittsap/) the Victory Court proposed ballpark site is located in this redevelopment zone. It was presented as a collaborative effort by Oakland CEDA, the MTA, BART and Peralta Colleges. As Vsmoothe mentioned in her blog post, the area is somewhat of a donut hole surrounded by fairly active areas such as Jack London Square, Chinatown, DTO and the Lake Merritt Area, and this was the first of several meetings to gather community input on what was needed for the area.

At the meeting, they assigned all attendees to tables and, following a brief introduction by CEDA Deputy Director Eric Angstadt, Councilmember Patricia Kernighan and others, we were able to discuss the issues in the area and what people wanted to see built there. The topics discussed included safety, more retail, higher density housing and improved pedestrian access. When the ballpark was not mentioned specifically by anyone, I brought it up to the people at my table. The response within my group was overwhelmingly positive. While there were concerns about increased vehicle traffic and where people were to park, the consensus was that a ballpark located at Victory Court would bring increased pedestrian access, improved police presence and more retail to the area. It's hard to say if this was the opinion of the majority of the people in the area, but I feel that the initial public viewpoint is looking favorable to a Victory Court ballpark.

On a closing note, a friend of mine who joined me at the meeting took a long walk from the MTA building (across the street from Lake Merritt BART), grabbed Chinese food in Chinatown and then had a beer at the Trappist in Old Oakland. He remarked how close and easy a ballpark at Victory Court would be to these already vibrant Oakland neighborhoods.