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Oakland Unwrapped Unstucking Jack London By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor Okay, Oakland didn't follow up on my suggestions last sum-mer for making Jack London Square actually have something to do with Jack London, but I ain't mad at you. In fact, in the meantime, I've been thinking up some other ideas. Somebody ought to. Since the fight over the old Jack London Village last year, we seem to have forgotten all those pro-mises of revitalization and revibrantization, and such. The Square sits like an old gull with its legs stuck up to the feathers in estuary mud, unable to take off and fly for all the old weight its carrying. I con-tinue to confess, I don't know jack ("s" not "l") about retail development. But I do know a little about shopping and going out and getting entertained. And what the Square seems to lack in those regards is a both a hook and a theme. Regarding the hook: You ever notice how you go into a department store and you almost always end up in a certain department, maybe in front of the big screen TV's or the seasonal displays? You might think it's by accident, or that you made the decision yourself, but it's hardly either. Retailers spend thousands of dollars a year figuring out ways to get you down certain aisles in certain combinations to certain area destinations. Unless you go in with a certain purchase in mind, you generally end up following their plan. Look at your average mall. They place the biggest attrac-tion stores ... Macy's and Mervyn's, J.C. Penney's ... all the way at the ends, at opposite sides. If you go into the mall just to wander, you're drawn to the big spots at either end, passing all those little specialty shops along the way. That's why the specialty shops in malls get so much business; it's from the traffic going by, drawn by the big hooks. Jack London Square has the potential for an outdoor mall ... we've just set it up the wrong way. Not only have we failed to put the biggest retail attractions at the ends of Water Street, we haven't put any attractions there at all. Where Jack London Village used to be is now a parking lot. At the opposite end are the Port offices and the ferry terminal. The biggest retail attraction on the Square ... Barnes & Noble ... sits smack at the entrance at Embarcadero and Broadway. Most times I go to B&N I'm in and out, and don't even bother to check out the rest of the Square. I don't think I'm by myself.Regarding the theme: Maybe we should keep on trying to attract a Nordstrom's or a Hecht's to downtown Oakland ... maybe not. But in the meantime, what would work for Jack London Square would be some smaller shops bunched together around specific themes. This is an old idea. Antique stores tend to plunk themselves together in one district, so do car dealerships and furniture stores and book shops. Even though they are in competition with each other, they see a value in having one area of town where people come to buy a certain product. You go down to Cody's by the University to look for a book. It ain't there, you stop in Moe's. Right now, Jack London Square retail is a mishmash of unrelateds. There's nothing wrong with a hat shop, or a game store either. But a guy who's stopping off to buy a nice hat to go out clubbing, he ain't likely to look over and say, hey, I need to get myself a new Monopoly set. Or a kayak. They just don't seem to go together. There are a lot of themes that might work well on the Square. How about ethnic art and literature, just for one? We've already got Sam's Art Gallery and Karibu and Barnes & Noble ... how about pulling in a good Mexican import place, a store that specializes in Arab or Indian art (East or West or Native, doesn't matter) ... maybe even get Marcus Books to move down there. Anyhow, I'm just tossing out ideas. Just so no one can say that there aren't any. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is an author, a journalist, and a graduate of Castlemont High School. He can be reached at www.safero.org and [email protected]. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]