[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

[George Herbert]

On 9/23/07, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> George, Marc, Sue, others - what neighbourhoods might you recommend?
> Fundamentally, for that first year, we are looking for something
> transit-accessible, central, and as cheap as possible. A little seedy
> would be okay.

In my personal opinion...

In San Francisco, the two parts of town that I would recommend would
be SOMA (despite my earlier comments) and on Market up between say 7th
and 12th streets.

There's some parking around SOMA, though it's not great.  The 101 and
80 freeways (landing for the Bay Bridge) go through or touch down in
SOMA.  MUNI trains go mostly around, not through, SOMA, but the buses
connect on through the middle.  The Caltrain trains coming up from the
Peninsula land at 5th and King St, at the south edge of SOMA.

SOMA ranges from upscale to slightly seedy, but is not cheap.

Market and very slightly south of market in the 7th to 12th street
area is cheaper, but much seedier.  It's not as freeway accessable and
has lousy parking, but is right on the BART and MUNI train lines.  Ten
years ago this area was a bit too dangerous; it's still downscale, but
not so bad.

Other areas of SF are probably not good matches, though someone else
may have an area  they'd recommend.


Looking outside SF proper -

In the East Bay, there's a small tech area in Emeryville, another in
downtown Berkeley, and some signs of life in downtown Oakland.

Downtown Berkeley is near UC Berkeley there, BART runs underground
through downtown.  Driving in to town from further away is not great,
but not as bad as Market street in SF.  I don't know real estate
pricing in Berkeley right now, but it was midrange.  Much less
business-ey around there.

Emeryville is all business, with a little residential for spice.
Focusing in on retail, but it has Pixar, Leapfrog, and some other IT
industry.  I worked in Emeryville for a couple of years, it's not
hugely metropolitan but was comfortable.  It's right across the bay
from San Francisco, just north of where the Bay Bridge touches down.
Prices were cheap, have come up some.  BART is a couple of miles away,
but there are free city buses that go up there.

Downtown oakland... sort of wierd.  They've kicked off urban renewal
and it's not terribly unsafe; I don't have a good feeling for the
business climate.  BART runs underground through town, and freeway
access is generally good.


Looking further south on the Peninsula and south bay...

There are little pockets of computer culture up and down the Peninsula
south of San Francisco.  There's a big one near where the San Mateo
Bridge lands, near the junction of highways 92 and 101.  Some of these
areas are near Caltrain tracks, otherwise it's buses or driving.

Palo Alto is near money (venture capital up in the hills, and some
downtown), Stanford, Caltrain runs through town, and there are good
freeways above town in the hills (280) and down at the base of town
(101), though it takes a while to get to the middle.  Much of it is
pricey.  University Ave is probably too expensive, but it's the most
cosmopolitan.

Going further into the South Bay... (not sure how "SF" focused you are)

Downtown Mountain View is not too far from 85, 237, and 101 freeways,
has Caltrain trains and the VTA Light Rail stopping right at the edge
of downtown.  Not too pricey, but downtown is fairly small.

There are other areas in San Jose and the rest of the South Bay which
might meet the general criteria.  It tends to be a blend of suburbia,
retail, and business, with little centers of each all around.
Downtown San Jose is somewhat on an upswing, has Caltrain nearby and
Light Rail right through the middle, and is close to San Jose airport.

I know many areas of the South Bay in pretty good detail, but I don't
know how open you are to going that far south.


Where I'm coming from...

I work doing IT consulting work for a company based in Santa Clara,
near San Jose.  I've worked for long periods around in SF, Emeryville,
Berkeley, Oakland, San Mateo, Mountain View, Santa Clara, San Jose,
Cupertino, ... around a lot.  More in the South Bay than elsewere, but
a fair amount in downtown SF or SOMA (4 years worth?  5 maybe).

I'm not a business real estate person, but some of my IT work has
included IT facilities, and I've been familiar with the facilities
people and leasing issues to some degree nearly everywhere I've
worked.


To second something I think Phoebe hinted at in passing...

A good resource would be to ping all the people who attended the
en.wikipedia SF meetups 2 and 3 (a few months ago, and last weekend) -
the first was great, I was sick for the second, but it sounds like
turnout was good and people had fun.  They will undoubtedly have their
own opinions and experiences.


Should there be a page on Meta?  8-)


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com