By Michael Fitzgerald
The Record - November 5, 2003
The Gleason Park neighborhood spiraled in the 1980s into Stockton’s Dope Fiend District, a nightmare for law abiders who hunker there in homes. It’s overdue for change.
Two developers have ideas. Very different ideas. One envisions bulldozers and a new Asian-flavored strip mall. Another envisions Filipino historic preservation and mixed use.
Whatever horse City Hall backs, it has a chance to re-think the way redevelopment is done.
As the latest wave (or slow-inching glacier) of redevelopment progresses, we hear builder-hero talk like, “I want to see cranes in the sky for the next 10 years.” That’s visionary. It shows long-overdue ambition.
But down on the ground, the city has been dragged into court and made to pay for pushing people around. And much of Stockton’s history has been lost.
Historically, redevelopment in Stockton is like the guy with an old car in his barn. The car is just old enough so the guy sees it as a clunker. So he junks it. A few years later, the car is hailed as a classic. Ever after, the guy bitterly regrets he didn’t restore it.
Worse, he has to drive a bland Ford Taurus around while his neighbor cruises by stylishly in a ‘56 T-bird.
The Hotel Stockton and Fox Theatre are happy exceptions to this pattern. But exceptions.
Once, the third-largest Chinatown in California was here. A Japantown. A Little Manila. All were bulldozed.
So San Francisco has its Chinatown, a wonderful cultural asset and world-class tourist attraction. Stockton microwaves pot stickers.
The trick is to appreciate the value of such assets in that midperiod when the car is rusty but not yet a classic.
So a first principle of redevelopment ought to be preservation. Ways should be found to revitalize ethnic neighborhoods economically, not to bulldoze them and build Anywhere U.S.A.
This approach requires less relocation. Less eminent domain. Less drama. Fewer lawsuits.
Contemplating Gleason Park, the Council has asked both developers for specifics. Probably leaders really want to see who’s got the money to make their idea work.
But then they must look for the car in the barn.
The Little Manila Foundation, one of the two competing developers, has done seminal research into the history of at least part of that area. Seminal, but not verified.
The city should set the Cultural Heritage Board, or a qualified objective somebody, to checking the foundation’s findings. Were the core buildings the foundation proposes to preserve always (primarily) Filipino? Does the four-block area sweepingly declared Little Manila by the Council have accurate borders?
This is not to favor either developer. It is to suggest the Gleason Park neighborhood is a car that needs to be taken to the Antiques Roadshow for expert evaluation. Maybe it’s not a classic. But if it is, let’s not junk it and buy another boring Taurus.
