Visions for Vacancies: What Albany Wants

This week I’d like to give an update on the suggestions that have been coming in to Spotmojo for Albany. Since many of the neighborhood businesses in Albany are on Solano Avenue, we decided to merge in the suggestions from the Berkeley side of Solano as well.

We haven’t yet reached a valid sample for Albany so we haven’t begun our business outreach yet. However, in Alameda, we’re very close to a valid sample so we have begun to reach out to businesses, trying to attract businesses there that the community has been asking for. We’ve been talking with operators of brewpubs, salad bars and Korean restaurants which are some their top suggestions. I hope we can do the same for Albany if there are unmet needs here.

So these are the top suggestions in Albany, including the Berkeley portion of Solano Avenue:

1. Coffee Shop, Internet Cafe
2. Grocery Store
3. Hardware Store
4. Butcher, Fish Market
5. Dine-in Movie Theater
6. Expand Zarri’s Deli
7. Bookstore
8. Kid’s activities, Play Cafe, Sticky Art Lab

I’ll comment on a few of these.  Some of the comments related to the coffee shop suggestions was that there aren’t enough tables at the existing coffee shops on Solano. Living nearby in Kensington I also frequent Solano Ave. for coffee shops and have noticed something similar. It appears coffee shops are trying to balance the needs of people who turn the cafe into their office and people who want to enjoy a cup with some friends. Some coffee shops have even stopped supplying WiFi to discourage people from turning the coffee shop into their office.

One trend that appears to be growing in popularity is this concept of “coworking space.” There’s quite a range in offerings but the basic concept is they provide people a place to work for a fee. It provides an alternative to camping out at a coffee shop all day. They may have shared tables, dedicated desks, meeting rooms, printers, WiFi, and other common office features, but you can pay by the day. I’ve seen them range from about $20 to $35 per day, but it goes down if you buy more upfront. I wonder if there are enough telecommuters to make this work in Albany.

Another popular suggestion was for some type of grocery store. Many have suggested a smaller grocery store that’s easier to get in and out of and that carries high-quality products like organic produce, breads, and artisan cheeses.

I’ve also noticed a lot of demand for this type of business in a couple of other cities we're working in. Many of our users in San Francisco’s West Portal district have been asking for something like a Bi-Rite Market or Canyon Market. This category is also a popular suggestion on Grand Avenue in Oakland. In fact, the founder of Code for America, who lives near Grand Avenue, wrote an interesting blog post about this topic. She then stumbled on one of our Spotmojo posters we have installed in a space that she references in that blog posting. She calls this type of store Bodega 2.0.

If you have suggestions for vacancies in Albany and haven’t already submitted them on Spotmojo, please do.

Here are some links to some of the vacancies on Spotmojo:

Next to House of Curries:  http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/1495solano/

Former Five Star Video: http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/5star/

Former Happy Produce:  http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/happyproduce/

Oaks Theater (Berkeley):  http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/oaks/