Rocket scientists hit speed bump in plan for Alameda expansion

Astra Space’s plans to expand at the former Alameda naval air station hit a tiny yet resolute bump: An environmental remediation firm of five that would be displaced.

Astra wants to add about 100,000 square feet, bringing its total presence there to 350,000 square feet in a part of Alameda that’s had little investment since the military pulled out over the past two decades, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The rocket research and development company is based in the city and is seeking to lease some of the former station’s buildings and demolish a pair of industrial structures to make room for more offices, the newspaper said.

Sustainable Technologies and its five workers occupy both Alameda Point properties that Astra, which has a headcount of about 300, wants to raze. It’s called the area home for more than two decades and is paying rent that’s below market rates, Sustainable’s Rene Rodriguez told the Business Times. It won’t vacate either building to accommodate Astra’s plans.

“This is a ‘David and Goliath’ kind of story because Astra is this big, shiny thing doing all kinds of stuff, and Sustainable is in the path of its expansion,” Nannette Mocanu, Alameda’s assistant director of base reuse and community development, told the Business Times. Neither company has any guarantees from the city, Mocanu said.

The city portrays Astra as a potential catalyst for Alameda Point, once home to Pan American’s first trans-Pacific clippers, and says it could attract more high-tech businesses, jobs and investment to the area. Yet unless it can find Sustainable a new home there, it must eventually decide whether to displace a longtime tenant that says it’ll probably leave Alameda if it can’t stay in the area.

Astra sought to take matters into its own hands, sending Sustainable a letter in September requesting it vacate one of its buildings within 30 days. The letter, which Astra sent without first consulting the city, offered Sustainable $62,000 if it agreed, the Business Times said. That amount would drop for every subsequent day.

An Astra spokesperson called the letter a “fairly standard business practice.” Sustainable ignored it, Rodriguez told the Business Times.

“We don’t have extra time to spend looking for properties,” she said. “We’re trying to get our projects done and our employees working.”

Alameda last year began trying to relocate Sustainable to new digs within the former naval base, whose runways were used for a car chase scene in “The Matrix Reloaded.” Available on-site properties either needed expensive tenant improvements or wouldn’t be ready at the right time, Alameda’s Lorie Curtis told Eric Fonstein, the city’s development manager, in October.

Sustainable will probably be allowed to remain where it is through the end of this year while the city continues to look for relocation options, Mocanu told the Business Times. The firm is operating under the assumption that it’ll eventually be asked to leave Alameda Point even if the city’s search for a new home turns up empty.

“They were more than happy to have us reuse the old abandoned buildings and put them to better use,” Rodriguez said. “All of the sudden it’s like — this company with a lot of money showed up, so now you’re out. I guess that’s just the way it is.”

[San Francisco Business Times] — Matthew Niksa

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