Economy
When homeowners first moved to the Marina Bay area, they say, it was a country-like neighborhood. Birds nested on the trees in the gated community. Nights were dark and tranquil. But, they say, everything changed last December when the neighboring business Richmond Wholesale — “one of the largest West Coast distributors of frozen, chilled, and dry food products,” according to its website — closed its Factory Street facility in North Richmond and made the Regatta Boulevard facility its main one….
A divided Richmond City Council has rejected a zoning amendment that would allow a digital advertising billboard on the I-80 corridor for the troubled Hilltop business district. Leaders in the Hilltop district have urged the city to allow a digital billboard to promote the businesses there since 2007, but the city’s sign ordinance currently doesn’t allow such signs. Last March, the city council directed staff from the Planning & Building Services Department to create a zoning amendment that would permit…
“Man, it’s a big deal!” said Rita Johnson, Parchester Village Neighborhood Council President. She said that it is good to know that Parchester is “on the mind” of the mayor and city executives.
Nearly a year has passed since stories broke in February 2014, about disturbing living conditions in the Hacienda public housing complex. Now Hacienda residents will finally see the beginning of the end of their days at Hacienda.
Richmond’s new mayor Tom Butt made his first State of the City address on Tuesday night, announcing that “Richmond is open for business” and saying that his office is checking on the Hacienda public housing complex resident relocation every day. Butt started his address by thanking former Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, City Manager Bill Lindsay and all city employees for the “8 great years” when McLaughlin served as the mayor. “Richmond has clearly changed for the better and we want to…
Cecilia Rodriguez has lived in Richmond for 24 years. Over the past seven, she has worked for $8 an hour at a McDonald’s on Macdonald Avenue to support her three children, all of whom are currently in college.
Long after the billboards come down, the campaign mailers rest in landfills and the New Year’s toasts come and go, 2014 may be remembered as Richmond’s big election year. We are honored to have been in Richmond’s streets and chambers, its homes and schools and everywhere else, helping write the first drafts of history in an important time and place. Chevron Corp. poured an unprecedented $3.1 million into the municipal races only to lose the open mayoral and city council seats to a progressive coalition on every…
Walk down Macdonald Ave from the Civic Center toward downtown Richmond, and something will make you say, “Huh?” At the 20th Street intersection, you can buy five Christian music CDs for $20, walk four feet, and buy two cigars for 99 cents. How many cities do you know where a Bible store and a smoke shop share a wall? There’s a 100-year-old flower shop on the same block— and three Metro PCS stores within a half-mile stretch. I’ve done the…
As the country continues to recover from the economic crisis, and housing prices in the Bay Area have quickly resumed their ascent, Richmond is stuck in the biggest wealth gap in housing it’s ever known.