[sudoroom] EBALDC Space near 19th St BART

[Matthew Senate]

Howdy Folks,

Today Anca and I had a tour of 1825 San Pablo Ave, a former
warehouse-turned-office owned by the East Bay Asian Local Development
Corporation (http://ebaldc.com/). Check out their mission, it's great. The
building is two stories, with a roof that may be accessed, but is not
load-bearing. The first floor is ground-level, and they are moving the
elevator and including the roof as a stop for future development purposes.
The outside walls are concrete, the structure is redwood, which they hope
to expose (keeping minimal drywall throughout the building) in order to
enjoy it.

The second floor is going to become the new office for EBALDC, but the
first floor is slated to become a rich, diverse space for community
engagement and activity, some commercial, some non-profit, and things
between. The building takes up a narrowing city block shaped like a
triangle, and sits between two new restaurants, across from a city-owned
parking lot, and in view of several new housing developments. The first
floor used to be a shelter, so there is a full industrial-grade kitchen,
showers, toilets, etc. I asked about the history, the shelter lost funding
before EBALDC bought the building, which should ease our consciences. The
building is zoned for commercial use, so residing there is possible. A
major advantage of this space is that EBALDC is interested in doing
build-out to really bring the first floor to life, which is a hackerspace's
dream.

Anca took some video, so we should be able to share that on the wiki.
Should also be able to grab some of the floorplan drawings too. This is a
location of particular interest for her and Techliminal, especially given
the owner's directions and goals.

I added it to the listings spreadsheet:
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Sudo_room/open_a_space#Listings_Spreadsheet

Proposals:

1. We should pursue this as a location for Sudo Space. We should research
grants that would fit well with the building/area, the other organizations
involved, and our mission/goals. This is a longer-term and less-urgent
process.
2. We should talk about this space and think big at our next meetup (fun!)
because that's the sort of vision we need to show we are interested, even
if we are looking for a short-term location and do not know where we will
be in a year.

- Matt
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