Can Richmond’s once-vibrant Macdonald Avenue business hub be revived?

It may seem hard to imagine now, but Richmond’s downtown hub along Macdonald Avenue was once a vibrant business community envied by neighboring cities.

Department stores, banks, doctors’ offices, grocery stores, clothing outlets and jewelry shops once lined the street.

It’s estimated that in 1958 there were 180 businesses along Macdonald Avenue alone between First and 15th streets. Today, there are about 150 businesses in the entire old downtown neighborhood.

The thoroughfare still has one shopping center, but there are many empty storefronts and struggling businesses and unhoused people camped out on sidewalks amidst dried out overgrown weeds on unkempt medians. Plenty of cars pass through on their way to other destinations, but business owners are concerned there’s not a lot of people perusing the remaining storefronts.

However, civic and business leaders are making a concerted effort to revive this stretch of Macdonald Avenue to at least a glimmer of its former glory.

They say bringing in new housing and vibrant businesses that would appeal to outside visitors are the most important components of a potential comeback.

It may be a steep hill to climb, but community leaders are cautiously optimistic it can happen.

“The district has clearly had its struggles, but it is on the upswing,” said Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who grew up in Richmond and still lives here.

The rise and fall of Richmond’s business districts

When Richmond was incorporated in 1905, the heart of the city’s business district was in Point Richmond.

James Cheshareck, a local historian and a board member of the Point Richmond History Association, said that quickly changed as Point Richmond fell out of favor and merchants began looking to establish themselves in an area they viewed as newer and more forward-looking.

By the mid-1910s, commerce had migrated to the Macdonald Avenue corridor.

“Many Point Richmond businesses and professionals relocated alongside a slew of new businesses lining Richmond’s golden roadway,” Cheshareck said. “Doctors, lawyers, bankers, grocers, clothiers, theaters, jewelers and a variety of businesses were only a streetcar ride away for patrons.”

The Richmond Daily Independent newspaper set up shop in the new downtown, and architect James Narbett designed showpieces such as the Cunningham and Abbott buildings, structures that are no longer there.

Cheshareck said the district flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, but its heyday was in the post-war 1940s and 1950s. Among other businesses, the district had JCPenney, Woolworth’s and Macy’s department stores. There were also two major movie theaters.

“Shoppers from around the East Bay flocked to downtown Richmond and patronized these businesses and countless others,” said Cheshareck.

However, Cheshareck notes, El Cerrito Plaza opened in 1959, drawing away customers. In addition, downtown Richmond lost its allure as its once-magnificent buildings began to age.

“Like many cities, Richmond was also not immune from poverty, crime and other social turmoil of the 1960s,” he said. 

By the 1970s, Cheshareck said, many Macdonald Avenue shoppers “had taken their business elsewhere, obliging the city to formulate an action plan to entice large chain stores to stay in Richmond, thus preserving tax revenue Richmond relied upon.”

The answer was the Hilltop Mall shopping center, which opened in 1976 on the north side of town. National chain stores flocked to the new facility.

“Hilltop Mall was a great success, but it put Macdonald Avenue out to pasture,” said Cheshareck.

“Many believe Hilltop Mall was the final nail in the coffin of Macdonald Avenue,” added Gioia.

The initial efforts to revitalize Macdonald Avenue

Macdonald Avenue businesses languished during the 1980s and 1990s. However, as the new century dawned some local leaders began to take action to bring back the corridor.

In 2002, the Richmond Main Street Initiative was formed. The main goal of the community-based nonprofit is to “revitalize historic downtown Richmond as a pedestrian-friendly urban village offering products, services, arts and entertainment that reflect the community’s rich and diverse heritage.”

This is modeled after Main Street America’s Main Street Approach, a philosophy that emphasizes economic development, historic preservation, urban planning, technical assistance and advocacy support.

The Richmond Main Street Initiative has tried to strengthen the downtown core by supporting local businesses and organizing community events such as the Spirit & Soul Festival, the Healthy Village Festival and the Downtown Arts program.

In 2012, local business owners approved the formation of the Downtown Richmond Property and Business Improvement District (DRPBID). The DRPBID imposes an annual parcel assessment to raise funds to pay for services and activities. The fees range from $0.134 per parcel square foot per year for commercial uses to $0.078 per parcel square foot per year for mixed-used entities. Residential parcels are exempt. The assessments bring in about $240,000 per year.

The district, which is managed by the Richmond Main Street Initiative, includes parcels along Macdonald Avenue from Sixth Street to 16^th Street between Barrett Avenue and Bissell Avenue. In 2022, it was reported that there were 82 parcels owned by 34 entities in this corridor.

The money supports programs that include cleaning, maintenance, safety, promotions and business recruitment. One of the key provisions is an ambassador program in which paid employees patrol the district looking for graffiti, trash, crime and other issues.

The programs appeared to be making some progress for a while.

In 2016, the Richmond Main Street Initiative was designated as an accredited Main Street America program for meeting the national organization’s 10 performance standards, including fostering public-private partnerships.

Gioia said 95 new businesses opened in the old downtown after the Richmond Main Street Initiative was formed. Community events were also drawing people from outside the neighborhood.

Then, the pandemic hit. The restrictions imposed during the pandemic paused many community events and kept customers away from brick-and-mortar stores.

“COVID did a big number in terms of the vitality of the businesses downtown,” said Amanda Elliott, the vice president of field services for Main Street America. She worked at the Richmond Main Street Initiative from 2007 to 2019 and served as its executive director.

The city of Richmond recently announced it will be awarding grants of $5,000 to $10,000 to businesses that began operating before March 24, 2020. The Richmond/ARPA Funds Relief Grant program is providing the grants to help businesses impacted by the COVID pandemic.

New housing, phase 2 BART plaza project could boost vitality

The challenge now is to rebuild, and local leaders admit progress has been slow on that front.

The district still has some major tenants. The BART station, where the Main Street Initiative’s offices are located, is on its eastern edge. There’s the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, and Kaiser Permanente’s Richmond Medical Center has a large footprint. 

There’s a shopping center with a Walgreen’s and a Foods Co. that draws shoppers with well-stocked shelves and large displays of fruits, vegetables and meat.

There are also the City Center Apartments on the second and third floors of a refurbished building with a police substation nearby.

One of the key tenants is CoBiz Richmond, which provides working and meeting spaces and is a hub for community events. The business (where Richmondside has an office) recently announced that for the first time it has filled all of its anchor private office spaces in the facility — considered a win, given that it opened soon before the pandemic.

However, there have been some hopeful enterprises that haven’t come to fruition.

The Vibe Bistro takes up a corner of the CoBiz building as a place to eat and drink coffee as well as enjoy entertainment, but the venture hasn’t gotten off the ground. Sarah Wally, the director of the Richmond Main Street Initiative, said her organization is working with the bistro owners to see if they can support them.

“I hope that happens. They are an important anchor tenant,” Wally said.

Rich City Rides, a co-op bike shop and a nonprofit, occupied the corner across the street from CoBiz, but it closed its doors in January after a dispute between the co-owners. And, across the street from Rich City Rides,  El Garaje, the family-owned Mexican restaurant beloved by patrons from throughout the Bay Area for its critic-renowned, crispy quesabirrias, shuttered its Richmond brick-and-mortar last month. The family announced on Instagram that running the restaurant was stretching them thin, personally and financially.

In addition, the larger entities that are in the area don’t appear to be providing a customer base for smaller businesses to thrive.

Silvio Barbosa Jr. and his wife have managed the San Francisco Pizza & Restaurant near Foods Co. for the past 27 years. He remembers that before the pandemic he would have a line of customers during the lunch hour. Many of them were Kaiser employees.

He says those patrons haven’t returned yet. He blames the people who loiter in the shopping center parking lot, often panhandling or openly using drugs.

It’s a similar story at Sarita’s Flower Shop down the street. Adrianna Sanchez opened the business in January 2024 and has had to scramble to keep it open.

“Things are not too bad,” she said, “but they’re not too good either.”

Sanchez said she sometimes barely takes in enough revenue to pay her $2,400 monthly rent.

She also believes the homeless encampments discourage customers from visiting downtown.

Housing seen as possible solution to revitalizing downtown

However, Elliott doesn’t think the homeless situation is the No. 1 problem.

“I think the homeless situation is not the key element driving away people,” Elliott said. “It’s not that people are being driven away, it’s that there is nothing attracting them to the area. There is not enough business and housing to attract people. People generally will come downtown if there is a reason for them to be there and something great to attract them.”

She said the main priority should be building housing. One of the prime potential spots is the vacant, fenced-in lot at 12^th Street and Macdonald that used to house a KFC as well as a Goodwill store. Wally said preliminary plans were filed with the city’s planning department to build 400 apartments there.

“Housing brings people out,” she noted.

Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez agrees on the importance of housing to downtown’s future.

“Our top priority for downtown’s revitalization is bringing people back to the area. We need housing, public gathering spaces, and diverse businesses,” Martinez said. “However, we must be thoughtful in how we approach downtown’s development. It’s essential to keep residents at the forefront of our planning, we need responsible, community-centered growth.”

The mayor points to the Transit Village-Metro Walk project in the region. The 16-acre development near the BART station is being built in two phases. During the initial phase on the west side of the BART station, 132 units of housing, 16,500 square feet of retail space and a BART parking garage were built.

The second phase is expected to begin on the BART station’s east side next year. It will include 99 housing units, about 10,000 square feet of retail space and an elevated walkway to the station from Nevin Avenue.

Elliott would also like to see a restaurant or two, a coffee shop and some service-oriented businesses.

Gioia would like to see a “health corridor” established where people in the Marina neighborhood could easily travel from their waterfront properties to downtown.

He also would like to see the entertainment scene expanded in this part of the city.

“There is a great opportunity for a new, reimagined downtown,” he said.

There is some optimism among those trying to resuscitate the downtown.

After Wally was appointed executive director, following the resignation of Andrea Portillo last summer, the Richmond Main Street Initiative is back in business. The organization has hired a part-time employee to oversee events and social media. There are also three paid ambassadors who roam the downtown area from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays.

In early November, the organization published its first newsletter in years. This one featured Foods Co. The newsletter will highlight downtown businesses and will be published every few weeks.

This fall, the group welcomed the Mobile Food Vendors program, a city-run project that brings sidewalk enterprises to various neighborhoods. The mobile vendors set up camp on Macdonald Avenue every Thursday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The organization also plans to bring back the Spirit of Soul music festival in 2025. 

Wally notes there are a variety of entities, not just her organization, that are working to revitalize the downtown.

“The hope is it all comes together,” she said.

Diego Garcia, a Richmond Main Street Initiative board member and the owner of Leftside Printing on Macdonald Avenue, is also optimistic.

“Absolutely. If you’re not optimistic, then nothing is possible,” he said.