Economy

No TOPA bill for Richmond, Council holds

Richmond’s City Council on Tuesday halted the drafting of a rule that would have required landlords to offer local tenants the first opportunity to buy their homes before they are put on the market or demolished.

Council votes on Zeneca site clean-up and development

Electrician and two-time cancer survivor Sherry Padgett could throw a baseball from her 49th Street cabling business and hit what Richmond residents call “the Zeneca site:” an eighty-seven-acre property that contains more than a century’s inheritance of hazardous waste from manufacturers including the now-defunct herbicide maker Stauffer Chemical and the European pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Padgett calls the chemicals on the site a “witch’s brew.” Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, the City Council voted 5-2 to reverse its support for a cleanup…

Richmond business hub opens with co-working spaces, pop-up restaurants

The newly-opened Richmond Business Hub stands on the first floor of the Richmond BART parking garage at the corner of 16th Street and Macdonald, across the street from the Rich City Rides bike shop. It was unveiled last month during a ribbon-cutting event attended by city councilmembers, residents and members of the Richmond Main Street Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing the downtown. The 10,000 square-foot hub is a co-working facility: two working space ventures, Co-Biz and Oakstop, are part…

Tales of Two Cities: Endings

Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast!  This episode is all about endings. This week, we tag along with a family in North Richmond that visits several cities just to get groceries. We check in with Warriors fans about how they feel about their team heading (back) to San Francisco. We’ll take a quick trip across the bay to visit the last days at Lucca’s Ravioli in San Francisco. Back bayside, we hear from the owner of one…