By Ed Avis
Businesses move for lots of reasons – they outgrow their space, they want to be closer to customers, a storm damages the building, etc. But have you ever heard of a business moving because the city wants their land to build a new firehouse? That’s what’s happening to IRgA member East Bay Blueprint & Supply Co. in Oakland, California.
The company, founded in 1929, has occupied its current space for 44 years. The 20,000-square-foot building, a former Safeway supermarket, and its parking lot take up an entire city block. The property is apparently the only space the City of Oakland can find that will accommodate a new firehouse. The existing firehouse, about two blocks away, is 116 years old and no longer up to standards.
When a city needs something, it generally gets it: Unless the owners of East Bay – Steve and Grace Von Querner – can come to an agreement with the city beforehand, the city will force them out using “eminent domain,” a legal procedure that allows governments to acquire private property under certain circumstances.
“I don't really like the idea having to move because honestly, we’ve been there a long time,” Steve Von Querner says. “I would just as soon stay where I’m at.”
Von Querner says he first heard rumors about the city wanting their space about four years ago, but at that time, he believed the city was considering multiple options.
Then in December he got a letter explaining how important a new fire station would be and that their property was what the city wanted. The letter said the city “hoped that we understood,” Von Querner says.
The contact person cited in the letter wasn’t a city employee – it was an attorney who handled the eminent domain cases involved with the development of the Bay Area Transit Authority bullet train.
The Von Querners hired their own attorney to ensure they are properly represented, and they have begun considering other properties for their headquarters location.
It seems inevitable that the city will get their property, but naturally the Von Querners hope to get a fair price for it, which may be greater than what the city has currently offered.
“Obviously our customers are developers, architects, engineering companies, so on and so forth, and they’ve always stated that, you know, if you ever want to develop this piece of property, it's gonna be worth a lot of money,” Von Querner says. “We have had some offers close to twice as much as the city is offering us.”
In addition to paying them for the property, the city promises to pay for their move and to make sure their new space is property outfitted to accommodate the equipment a modern reprographics firm uses.
“You don't just walk in and start plugging the things into the wall. You have a lot of 220, and we have some equipment that takes three-phase 208. And the plugs have to be in the right place for the equipment – you just can’t have an extension cord going across the floor,” Von Querner says. “So they city is supposed to pay for that.”
East Bay Blueprint has two other locations, in the nearby cities of Walnut Creek and Hayward, that could help pick up the slack during the move, though they are smaller.
Unless a deal with the city can be hammered out soon, the next step in process may be in a courthouse. Von Querner says the city has filed the eminent domain lawsuit and it is scheduled to be adjudicated in early November.
A couple of decades ago the Von Querners faced a similar situation – minus the eminent domain lawsuit – when the landlord for their location in Walnut Creek announced the property was being redeveloped into housing. After fruitlessly searching for a new location, Von Querner called the owner of a competing blueprint shop.
“I told him who I was and said, ‘We have to move and every time I look around, I’m within two blocks of you,’” Von Querner remembers. “And he said, ‘You know, you just happened to call on the right day because I’m the owner and my manager hasn’t showed up for two weeks and I’m filling in for him. And my wife’s telling me every day, you’re crazy to be going there, so let’s talk.’ So we bought his company and we moved our company right in with him. It worked out beautiful.”
Could something like that happen again?
“Well, you never know,” Von Querner says.