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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Regional Focus: February 2006
On the Move
San Joaquin County has four major freeways, two transcontinental railroads, an international waterway and a regional airport. Attracted to its valuable location, new business is flowing into this region, infusing it with vitality and spirit.
Story by Patricia Kutza
Deepwater access is an asset that just a few fortunate Northern California cities can leverage. Oakland has capitalized on its estuary location by expanding its port operations and developing its waterfront for business and residential use. Vallejo, Benicia and Port Costa all utilize the Carquinez Strait. Steeped in maritime history, Stockton is banking on the strategic location of its deepwater ship channel to promote a new message: This city is revitalized and ready for a big surge in business.
Stockton’s fortunes have been linked with water since the days when Gold Rush fever triggered settlements in the city’s southern mining regions. The Stockton Slough, as it was known then, became a supply center for these towns, and vessels plied its navigable waters, carting supplies and workers bound for the southern mines.
A century later, WWII military demands made those California cities with a nexus of waterways and railway arteries excellent candidates for producing warships. During this period, Stockton’s 10 shipyards regularly launched freshly constructed war-ready ships into Stockton’s channel, which by 1933 had been dredged for deepwater passage.
The drivers of the current Stockton renaissance are no longer tied to war or gold. Instead, they are tied to Stockton’s downtown as a destination for businesses and their customers.
Historically, Stockton’s waterfront has been a diamond in the rough. But the political will that started to polish this gem came from previous mayor Jan Darrah, says Douglass Wilhoit Jr., CEO of the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce.
Darrah spearheaded the creation of the Weber Point Event Center, a complex situated on the channel’s north shore and the epicenter of the channel’s renovation. “She really should be given credit for launching these early efforts,” Wilhoit says.
In the ’80s, Mayor Gary Podesto took Stockton’s waterfront revitalization a quantum leap further, and a partnership including Stockton’s Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council, the San Joaquin Partnership and the San Joaquin County Economic Development Association brought new industry to the San Joaquin County region.
In 2006, belief in Stockton’s worth continues to build currency. The Stockton Events Center is home to the Stockton Ballpark and the Stockton Arena. The recent selection of the ballpark for the 2007 Class A California/Carolina League All-Stars game is no small nod to its design.
Adjacent to the ballpark is the 10,000-seat Stockton Arena, home to several sports teams and the future site of numerous events and concerts. It also has 5,000 square feet of meeting rooms and expects to host entertainment and tradeshow events.
Giving visitors more hotel options is another part of Stockton’s master plan. Scheduled to open this December is a Sheraton Hotel and conference center adjacent to the events complex.
Further down the channel, at the Dean DeCarli Waterfront Square, the Hotel Stockton has reopened its doors after a lengthy period of disuse. Renamed The Stockton, it incorporates street-level shops and restaurants with affordable apartments for seniors on its upper floors.
An additional housing plan likely to transform Stockton is scheduled to kick off in 2006. So says Steve Carrigan, Stockton’s economic development director.
“Within the next five years we plan to build at least 1,000 market-rate condominiums in the 14 acres that span both the north and south waterfront shores. We’ve built this great entertainment and business complex at Weber Point. Locating these homes within walking distance of the Point is in line with our vision of building an inviting live/work/play environment.”
Virtually all great cities with water access understand the importance of establishing walking spaces. Stockton has hired the landscape architecture firm of Callander Associates as consultants for its waterfront promenade, which will link the south shore Weber Point Event Center to the Morelli boat-launching facility approximately 4,500 feet to the west.
Callander’s portfolio includes Half Moon Bay’s Coastside Trail, which won an outstanding-achievement award from the California Healthy Cities Project, as well as a park-planning award of excellence from the California Park & Recreation Society. Callander’s work supporting the Monterey Recreation Trail and the Neary Lagoon Wildlife Refuge in Santa Cruz garnered national and state accolades.
Stockton’s promenade will be financed with a $13.3 million loan secured by the city’s redevelopment agency. Features along its walkway will include a marina with storage for boats, parking areas, plazas, and pedestrian and bicycle pathways.
Waterfront visitors who prefer to take in the scene while seated will be able to do just that by boarding a trolley that evokes the historical flavor Stockton’s planners want to emphasize. For just a quarter, they can ride San Joaquin’s downtown trolley loop.
Wilhoit says the trolley “is another way that businesses will be able to support each other. For example, folks coming to Stockton for a hockey event can be shuttled from the arena to their hotel.” Wilhoit points to the sellout crowds that supported the Stockton Ports baseball team as evidence that the community is willing to support waterfront-based events.
“We’ve got a small-time-city feeling that people gravitate to,” says Wes Rhea, the chamber’s visitor and tourism representative. “Stockton is still located at the transportation crossroads of California. But there’s plenty of reasons now why folks are stopping here to visit instead of just passing through on their way elsewhere.”
The San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission has little patience with naysayers. Until the late ’90s, motorists battled increasing traffic in the Altamont Pass corridor. It was the commission’s determination that, in 1998, created the Altamont Commuter Express. Now three trains originate daily from Stockton, and three originate from Manteca-Lathrop and Tracy stations, carrying commuters to stations in Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont, Great America and San Jose.
“The commuters were begging for it,” explains ACE’s executive director, Stacey Mortensen. “Naysayers told us that it couldn’t be done. I am very proud that the commission ignored their messages and rallied the community to support this concept.”
In 1990 voters passed Measure K, a half-cent sales tax that eventually provided $40 million for the creation and management of the Altamont Commuter Express. With San Joaquin County’s population estimated to grow at an annual rate of 2.3 to 2.8 percent through 2010, this project couldn’t be more needed. No one knows this better than the more than 40,000 commuters who drive over the Altamont Pass daily on their way to jobs in Pleasanton, Livermore, Fremont and Silicon Valley.
“ACE ridership currently averages about 1,500 people each way, and it’s growing,” says Mortensen. Instead of developing policy in a vacuum, the commission actively solicits feedback from the real experts: the commuters who currently ride ACE, as well as those commuters who say they would use it if it supported more of their transportation needs.
ACE consistently hears from commuters who rely on their cars to go on errands during their lunch hours or on their way home. ACE’s response is to make their trains benefit-rich.
“Since average passenger time on the train is 90 minutes each way,” Mortensen explains, “our main service focus is trying to make the time onboard our trains as productive as possible for passengers.”
All trains offer free Internet access, a service that is already hugely popular with passengers. During tax time, ACE riders can also take care of tax filings by using onboard H&R Block consultants. ACE surveys also alerted the commission to the fact that their passengers were not satisfied with train-service communication.
“When trains run late, customers were getting conflicting messages from our customer representatives when they called for updates,” says Mortensen. “Now we use an automated alert to send consistent status updates to our passengers. PDA users can even get text message alerts.”
Many ACE customers attend school full-time or juggle work and school responsibilities. The University of Phoenix has leveraged that fact by offering electronically delivered advanced-degree programs that commuters access via their wireless connections aboard the train. Phoenix has even established satellite facilities at ACE destinations such as Pleasanton for those student passengers who need to take courses at a physical site.
Passengers who use ACE’s depot in downtown Stockton get treated to the gilded ambiance of a former era when train stations were known for their eye-catching architecture.
“The building had been abandoned for a good 20 years. Bob Cabral, the late county supervisor, saw the historical value in preserving it and led the drive for its renovation,” Mortensen remarks. “My heart still pounds when I enter the building now,” she says. “With its high ceilings, large columns, gold-leaf embellishments, picket windows and marbled tile floors, I am transported daily back in time to the ’30s.”
There are more service improvements on the drawing board for this year. Adding a midday train by spring is in the works, says Mortensen. “We want to make it more attractive for folks who need to work only half of a day or are shopping, attending cultural events or just doing errands.” ACE is also exploring the possibility of adding fitness cars to their existing trains.
ACE also uses area events to leverage its brand. Special trains carry passengers to the San Jose Jazz Festival; Oakland A’s games; Stockton’s signature annual event, the Asparagus Festival; and math and science fairs.
Shifting demographics and a growing population base throughout Sacramento, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties present ongoing challenges ACE wants to address.
“We need to address the demand for direct access to BART, such as providing access to the Pleasanton BART station,” Mortensen adds. “We are also studying the prospect of adding new commuter service between Stanislaus County and Sacramento. This initiative would address the growing traffic on the I-5 and Highway 99 corridors.”
As the population ages, seniors will become a powerful force throughout the state. Mortensen says it makes sense to listen closely to their needs and build services that suit them. She says ACE is creating a new program to recruit active seniors to become train docents, helping other seniors feel comfortable about using the trains and understanding the benefits of doing so. “The senior market should not be ignored. If we anticipate and respond to their needs, they will rely on ACE to get them where they need to go.”
In 2001 they thought they had it all locked up. That’s when the Stockton Metropolitan Airport competed with one other airport facility for the chance to be the new home of a major air-cargo company that wanted to relocate its Northern California operations. But Stockton came up short. The air-cargo business said Stockton’s runway wasn’t long enough, nor was its pad building-ready.
It was this wake-up call that would spur the airport into a series of improvements. “We are now shipping about 17,000 tons of cargo annually,” says the Stockton Airport’s director, Barry Rondinella. “That output puts us in the top third of shippers in the nation.” Since 2003, the airport has been the base of Northern California operations for UPS Supply Chain Solutions, which annually adds $3.4 million to the city’s coffers.
To attract a business of UPS’s caliber required an extreme makeover. The airport added 2,000 feet to its runway, making it the second largest runway in the region. A new air-cargo apron capable of parking four wide-body cargo jets was built to the tune of $6 million.
In spring 2006, another apron will be doubled in size, and landing systems will be upgraded to become nearly all-weather capable.
This year will also launch Stockton as a player in the international aviation market. “We will be spending $2 million to modify our airport terminal,” Rondinella says. This is a prelude, he says, to the eventual presence of Aeromexico Airlines, which will fly passengers from Stockton to Guadalajara.
The Stockton Airport is also benefiting from increased private business and personal aviation. Stockton’s Jet Center, located at the airport, will expand its current 80,000-square-foot footprint to service the approximately 250 private planes that are based there.
Like its land-based sibling, the Port of Stockton can talk big numbers. Within its 2,000-acre operating area, the port can accommodate berthing for 17 vessels. Ships in the 45,000- to 60,000-ton range can navigate the Stockton deepwater channel fully loaded, and it is not uncommon to see vessels as long as 900 feet navigating its waters.
Its proximity to rail service put the channel on the map during the Gold Rush days. Railway access still plays a critical role for the port. Dockside transit sheds and shipside rail tracks — 1.1 million square feet of them — and 7.7 million square feet of warehousing receive loads from two transcontinental railroads — Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe — as well as two loop railroads.
Increased traffic at the port is news to crow about, says Mark Tollini, deputy port director of trade and operations. “We’re quite busy with processing increased shipments of cement and steel,” he says. The port processed 600,000 tons of cement from foreign ports in 2004. Last year’s shipment, which supported the demands of the construction industry throughout California, reached 1.54 million tons.
“Now that the tariffs have been lifted,” Tollini says, “steel shipments are also increasing. Steel rebar and plates are arriving from China, Japan and Thailand. Both products are also used by the construction trade.”
The port’s proximity to Interstate 5 and other interconnecting highway systems, railway access and state-of-the art facilities makes it well-positioned, says Tollini, to manage the emerging growth of the San Joaquin region. “We have the capacity and the know-how to meet the needs of this expansion.”
UOP’s Business Forecasting Center
When it comes to analyzing economic data and using it to predict trends, more and more people are turning to the soothsayers at the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific.
Not quite two years old, the center, part of the Eberhardt School of Business, truly has its finger on the economic pulse of the region, state and country. Led by Dr. Sean Snaith, the director of the Business Forecasting Center and an associate professor of business economics, the team publishes quarterly economic forecasts on topics as broad as the U.S. economy and as narrow as the Lodi wine industry.
“Our forecast models are sort of like those Russian nesting dolls,” says Snaith. “We start with the federal data, then follow that down to a state level and on down to a local level.”
The Business Forecasting Center opened in June 2004, thanks in large part to a federal grant obtained by Congressman Richard Pombo. Its goal is to provide crucial information for both public agencies and private businesses. And perhaps the best thing about the center’s data is the price — it’s free.
You can read its reports online at forecast.pacific.edu. “Our forecasts are pretty in-depth and allow people to slice them in a variety of ways. I try to avoid the academic jargon and write in basic terms,” says Snaith.
Back in September, the Business Forecasting Center published a thorough, 72-page report on what’s in store for Northern California’s metropolitan areas over the next few years. The report tackles residential construction, job growth, personal income and new-car registrations.
“It’s absolutely comprehensive,” notes Snaith. “You can just wet your finger, hold it up in the air and make a forecast. But ours are really tied into the models we create. I think that’s the distinction between what we do and a lot of other forecasts you see on Northern California.”
The forecast for the Stockton-Lodi area is very promising. The report predicts a 6.2 percent annual increase in personal income, outpacing the state average. It also shows a steady increase in housing, citing the continued migration of people out of the Bay Area.
“It’s true for much of the Central Valley. There is a major demographic shift from the coast inland, ” explains Snaith. The forecast also notes several significant trends that will have a major impact on Stockton-Lodi, like the rise in wine grape production and growth at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport.
And where does the center go from here? While Snaith says he’s happy with what’s happening now, the center can only expand.
“Given that we’ve gone from zero to 60 in a very short time, I’m pretty proud of what we’ve accomplished here. I couldn’t be happier with where we are now. However, we are sort of like a startup company. We need to get some venture capital in here that will allow us to expand our staff and the topics we cover.”
— Thomas Dodson
San Joaquin Regional Transit District
The San Joaquin Regional Transit District extends commuter options with bus service to the same cities supported by the Altamont Commuter Express, including Sacramento. Using an advance-reservations system, passengers embark from park-and-ride lots in Stockton, Lodi, Manteca, Lathrop, Escalon, Ripon and Tracy. There’s feeder service for folks who use the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to reach San Francisco and the East Bay.
VanGo is SJRTD’s response to those commuters who prefer to vanpool. It’s subscription-based and accommodates groups of five to 11 commuters. Finding like-minded commuters has become easier, thanks to a free service offered by the San Joaquin County Council of Governments. Vanpool hopefuls can scan SJRTD’s database to find a commuting match. More than 140 vanpools that need riders are listed, as is an interactive commuter-request form. For more information, go to commuteconnection.com.
