It looks like there won’t be city fireworks celebrations at the Craneway Pavilion anytime soon after all.
The Richmond City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday night against a proposal for the city to reassume control of the Craneway Pavilion, a historic waterfront venue at the former Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant.
Council members Soheila Bana, Cesar Zepeda, Jamelia Brown and Doria Robinson voted “no,” and the Richmond Progressive Alliance contingent, Mayor Eduardo Martinez, Claudia Jimenez and Sue Wilson, voted in favor.
Orton Entertainment, the developer leasing the Craneway, has held control of the property since 2004 in what officials described as a 55-year “evergreen” deal that allowed the company to extend its agreement for only $1 per year.
Orton had offered to transfer ground leases to the property, which sits on Harbour Way South next to the San Francisco Bay Ferry’s Richmond terminal, for no cost plus an $80,000 payment to the city to “offset the first-year operating expenses.”
According to former City Attorney Dave Aleshire, who resigned last year but continued his work on the Craneway negotiations, Orton has said that it intends to transfer the facility to an unidentified party for a “marine-use” if the city passed on the offer.
Alternatives to the deal, Aleshire said, would be to allow that third-party to assume the lease, which would leave the city with no say in how the property is used, or suing Orton for breach of maintenance obligations — a move that would require the city to legally argue that the current state of the Craneway is not “in good condition, order and repair and in a safe and clean condition,” according to the maintenance requirement in the lease agreement.
City staff cautioned in their report that the city might spend $1.3 million to $2.5 million annually in operating and maintenance costs.
One assessment by SCI Group said that even if the facility was left vacant, the city would have to spend $600,000 a year just on security, minimum utilities and insurance.
The staff report also said that another independent engineering contractor assessed the building and found that an additional $12.7 million in capital investments would also have to be addressed in the future, though Public Works Director Daniel Chavarria said that figure could be higher, taking up funds needed for other city projects.
“This is a major liability that we would be taking on as a public works department,” Chavarria said. “We would have to ask the city council what are the other priorities that would have to be delayed because it is not just about putting in money (for the Craneway maintenance). It’s actually more than $12 million. We like to round it up. So $13 million in today’s money but it has to come from somewhere.”
Council member Sue Wilson says she’s ‘processing’ the rejection of the deal
Wilson was a part of a council ad-hoc committee, alongside Martinez and Zepeda, that worked on the proposed deal.
In an email to her constituents prior to the meeting, Wilson said she supported taking the Craneway back though she had heard mixed messages from her constituents about Orton not paying more toward the millions in maintenance costs.
“Though I hear what people are saying, as a labor negotiator I learned that sometimes there is a gap between what we deserve to get and what we can get in a deal, usually due to a power imbalance between the two parties. That is the case here,” Wilson wrote. “The Craneway lease terms that the Richmond City Council gave to Orton Development 20 years ago — no expiration date, $1 per year rent, transferable — were so strongly tilted in the developer’s favor that most of the power in this current negotiation still lies with them.”
However, the dissenting council members expressed concern Tuesday about the millions in maintenance costs that the city would have assumed.
Bana questioned why the city would accept Orton’s offer given that the company failed to maintain the facility.
“Orton has had an obligation by the law to preserve the historic building. They did not. And we are going to let it go? Neglect and close our eyes to say bye-bye?” Bana said. “The city should not pay for someone else’s obligation. That is not moral. That is not ethical. That is not correct.”
Robinson, who said she had conversations with Orton, said she was alarmed that the venue at the height of its operations was only generating about $100,000 to $200,000 a year in revenue.
Since 2004, the site had been used to host the Third of July fireworks and symphony show but that ended in 2023 after Orton leased the facility to PB Development Group, which opened a pickleball court there. However, residents said using it for the sport violated land use rules because it wouldn’t be open to the general public. A proposal submitted by Orton for the pickleball courts was ultimately rejected by Richmond’s city attorney and the state Lands Commission.
Although Robinson said she is of the mindset that the city should position the property for economic development due to its proximity to the ferry terminal, Robinson said she didn’t believe it was the “right time” for acquiring the Craneway.
“We’ve been making so much progress on turning things around in the core of the city and getting things done finally,” Robinson said. “I just keep trying to figure out how this thing could work at this moment and I just can’t see it. There are so many things that need to be in place that aren’t in place.”
Robinson also pointed to the current state of the national economy as a factor in her rejection of the acquisition.
“We don’t know which way that’s going to go,” Robinson said. “We have a bunch of projects in motion that are going well and I feel like we’re buying a money pit.”
On Wednesday morning, Wilson sent a follow-up email about the issue,saying she was “still processing” the council’s decision to reject it and believes the city will still eventually be responsible for the building at some point.
“The only question is, are we going to spend money on maintaining a building that we brought back to the community to use, or are we going to spend money on litigation that has little chance of collecting a settlement?” Wilson wrote. “Unfortunately, the City Council chose the second option.”
