Peets at the Palmtag

Haven't posted for over a month - - nothing really perks my interest -- until now! This is very encouraging news....

From the Daily Review:
Peets Coffee has been announced as a future tenant for the Palmtag Building, at the corner of B Street and Mission. This was announced at the City Council's Downtown Committee at their 3/27 meeting. I would imagine that Peets would renovate the space recently vacated by the Silver Spoon Hofbrau this past December. Schedule? Completion of the Palmtag restoration by this fall, with Peets moving in early 2007.

Quoting from the Daily Review:

Downtown's historic Palmtag Building will be restored and will become home to a Peet's Coffee & Tea shop, a retail developer announced Monday.

Vic de Melo, vice president of Oakland-based Browman Development Company, said his company is preparing to do major remodeling work on the ailing but once-elegant building at the corner of B Street and Mission Boulevard.

"We feel in some ways we're bringing it back to what it was," de Melo said.

The development firm is counting on about $500,000 in city redevelopment subsidies to help with the costly renovation.

He said that along with the coffee shop, the vacant structure can fit two smaller stores and some office space on the second floor.

City leaders and downtown merchants greeted the proposal with enthusiasm Monday night after de Melo presented the plans to the Hayward City Council's Downtown Committee.

"We really think (Peet's) will bring more foot traffic down B Street," de Melo said. "They'vesigned a 10-year agreement with us, which is a pretty big commitment for them."

He said he is hoping to begin construction on the exterior in June and have it completed by Thanksgiving. Peet's could then do its own interior work and open by spring 2007.

The Palmtag Building's delicate rooftop cornices collapsed onto B Street during the 1906 earthquake, but the bulk of the building survived.

.....

In the decades it took for Hayward to expand into vast suburbs, and for much of commerce to move out of downtown, the Palmtag Building gradually lost a lot of its charm.

"I know I've had a lot of people asking about when would work begin on the Palmtag Building," said Richard Patenaude, the city's principal planner. "It has suffered over the years from deferred maintenance."

The bay windows and elaborate facade seen in early photographs of the building no longer exist. The oddly colored outside wall paints are peeling and faded.

The corner building's last major tenant, the Silver Spoon Hofbrau restaurant, vacated the building late last year.

If the Browman Development Company project succeeds, it will likely be a boost for the B Street area, where 14 of 67 storefronts are vacant, according to a city survey. Commerce continues to struggle despite millions of dollars spent on streetscaping, building facelifts and seismic improvements.

Another developer is putting a brand-new 12-screen cinema and retail complex further up on B Street, but the center will not be finished until well into 2007.

De Melo said that Browman Development Company went through a "pretty long odyssey" determining how it could renovate the Palmtag Building and bring in retail that would thrive there.

The firm built the neighboring retail pads on Mission Boulevard that include food chains Starbucks, Panda Express, Subway and Coldstone. It is also developing a big-box style Target-anchored shopping center on the far west end of A Street.

"Our real experience is building shopping centers from the ground up," he said. The proposed Palmtag renovation, he said, has been a "humbling experience."

The renovation requires significant seismic and code upgrades.

"We don't have a firm vision for the upstairs. Most likely it's going to be some kind of office space," de Melo said. "It's really cost-prohibitive to do anything extravagant."

The firm also owns a neighboring old building, which is home to the Bottle & Book House, a flower shop and the B Street Bar & Grill. Other than a possible paint job, there are no plans to renovate that building.

De Melo said the company has spent nine months securing a lease with Peet's, the Berkeley-founded chain that now operates several hundred stores nationwide.