Tuyen's Blog

Posts for Tag: jack london square

Warriors ... iPhone on T-Mobile ... Co-working Spaces

Been absent for a while but now I'm back.  Been very busy lately but hopefully will be able to post more.

Warriors!
Beat the Lakers last night.  Strong performance from Curry and Lee.  After a slump last month, they seem to be rolling.  Still need more production from Bogut.  He's definitely an upgrade from Biedrins or Ezeli but for $14M a year, he should be doing more.  Question is will he get healthy/better next year?

T-Mobile iPhone ... FINALLY!
News hit today that T-Mobile will finally be getting the iPhone.  I have to admit a certain fondness for T-Mobile.  I joined when the original Sidekick came out and never had an issue with the service.  The only reason I switched to AT&T was the iPhone.  If their LTE footprint were a bit wider, I might be convinced to join up again.  They seem to be much more reasonable with their subscriptions and this new "un-subsidy" is a good idea.  It's also reported that the T-Mobile version of the iPhone 5 actually is a newer version than the one with AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.  It makes use of the HD Voice calling feature talked about during the iPhone 5 launch and has access to more radio bands across the world.  Overall, glad to see more competition in the wireless marketplace.  Could only mean good things for consumers.

Co-working Spaces
I recently moved out of the large office space my company has occupied for over 2 years.  Just didn't need the space and needed to be more economical.  We found some co-working space nearby in Jack London Square.  So far so good.  From a financial standpoint it makes a lot of sense.  Month to month rentals, shared resources, etc.  The one benefit I haven't quite seen yet is the creativity/buzz when people from multiple businesses hang out in one space.  Maybe it's the quality of the tenants as most of the folks seem to be lawyers, contractors, etc.  Would be great if there were more start-ups in the co-working space but that will take time.

Jack London Market is now fully rented!

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The Jack London Market building is now fully occupied after Navis LLC agreed to take space on the top two floors.

The Jack London Market building is now fully occupied after Navis LLC agreed to take space on the top two floors.  Great to see the it finally fully occupied. We've been in the area now for close to 5 years and the dream of this beautiful building as the anchor of a revitalized Jack London Square was starting to fade away. Hopefully with the increased foot traffic, many of the local restaurants and businesses can thrive.

On another note, the courtyard in front of the old Barnes and Noble is currently being renovated to become a new open area and outdoor dining spot. Should be great during the summer months. Not sure what the building itself will become but rumors are that the powers that be are trying to woo either Trader Joes or Whole Foods there. Not sure how the parking logistics would work but more people flowing into JLS is never a bad thing.

Jack London Market changes plans

The developers originally planned to open a public market in the building’s interior similar to the ones in San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Seattle’s Pike Place Market, but are now leaning toward attracting food manufacturing tenants to fill the space.
via bizjournals.com

The news of the Jack London Market seems to be the secondary story in this piece (though Haven is quite good and deserves much kudos). Sad to see that the dream of having a Ferry Building style market place in Jack London is going away. However, looking at the abandoned first floor of the building for the past 3 years has been a bit of a downer so I'd be glad to see anybody occupy that spot. If they plan to bring folks like Miette in with their baking operations and small store front, it could actually work out to be something similar to the original idea.

It was a pretty ambitious plan to begin with. Without the necessary foot traffic, it would have been pretty difficult for any market style business to thrive. Had they been able to rent out all of the office space above the market, it could have worked. Hopefully once/if that space is taken, they can revisit the idea of a market style section.

Jack London Square heats up with expansion by Sungevity and fine dining from Daniel Patterson

Double dose of good news for Jack London Square today. First was that hot solar start-up Sungevity is leasing an additional 36,500 square feet in the mostly empty Jack London Market building. Sungevity is hoping to reach 400 employees by the end of the year which will give a great shot in the arm to the local economy. Even better was Sungevity CEO, Andrew Birch's commitment to growing in Jack London Square for the foreseeable future. The second piece of good news is that Daniel Patterson of COI fame has begun construction on his new restaurant Haven (also in the Jack London Market building). It's set to open in November of this year and will provide another great fine dining option alongside Bocanova and Ecuentro. Hopefully more businesses build/relocate/expand in the area and begin to realize that it's a great place to work and play.

A few items... New offices and short AT&T stock now!

It's been a long time since my last regular post. Lots have happened since - we moved into new offices, almost went to court and got a pet that slowly learns how to talk. To recap...

Centrro moved into new offices around November-ish. Still in Jack London Square about 4 blocks from the old office. Cool building with interesting architecture. Below are some pics...

And a very inventive shelving system we built with the help of Ikea and the USPS.

As for the court thing. Our old landlords over at The Commons were refusing to return our security deposit for damages. Interestingly, not for damage to the actual suite itself but for scuff marks on the stairs. What's even more interesting is that we didn't use the stairs to move our things out since we're on the 3rd floor and would be crazy to haul our stuff down two flights of stairs when there's a perfectly good elevator. After some back and forth including a filing with small claims, they sent us a check minus some bullshit minor charges. I'm still pissed but have spent way more time on this issue than I wanted to so we're dropping the claim. For future reference, I do not recommend doing business with Equistone Partners or their building management firm LCB Associates, which showed a total lack of integrity throughout the process. Oh well, live and learn.

Lastly, when we moved into the Ironworks Building, we were a little miffed to learn that Comcast wasn't available as a data option. Basically only AT&T came into the building so we signed up for AT&T phone lines and DSL. BIG MISTAKE. First, the DSL service was horrible - completely unusable. 6MB down and less than 1MB up for 8+ computers brought everyone's connectivity to a crawl. We were using Ooma VOIP phones at the old office but switched to plain land lines to avoid data congestion but even without VOIP across the lines, the service was just way too slow. On top of everything, AT&T service is not cheap. DSL came in at about $29 a month and each of our 8 phone lines costed us about $55+. With tax and fees our monthly bill was running about $550. After much begging and pleading with our new landlords, we were able to get Comcast into the building. Nice fat 50MB down and 10MB up data connection and 8 digital voice lines. Total monthly cost? Less than $300. It blows my mind why AT&T's landline and DSL business are still around. Not only am I paying half as much for better service, AT&T customer service has got to be one of the worst I've encountered. Once my wireless contract is up, I'll be moving that over to Verizon, as well. Farewell and good riddance, AT&T.