Richmond, California, United States

🇺🇸 Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a city council. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay region, Richmond borders San Pablo, Albany, El Cerrito and Pinole in addition to the unincorporated communities of North Richmond, Hasford Heights, Kensington, El Sobrante, Bayview-Montalvin Manor, Tara Hills, and East Richmond Heights. Richmond sits on the shores of both San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay.

History The Ohlone were the first inhabitants of the Richmond-area, settling an estimated 5,000 years ago. They spoke the Chochenyo language, and subsisted as hunter-gatherers and harvesters.

Origins The site that would eventually become the city of Richmond was part of the Rancho San Pablo land granted to Don Francisco María Castro, from which the nearby town of San Pablo inherited its name; the Point Richmond area was known originally as The Potrero and then renamed as Point Stevens in early charts of San Francisco Bay. Point Richmond was an island, but industrial development and deliberate fill connected it to the mainland by the early 1900s.

On July 4, 1900, the Santa Fe Railroad's western terminus was established at Point Richmond with ferry connections from Ferry Point in the Brickyard Cove area to San Francisco. The Santa Fe railroad also built a major rail yard next to Point Richmond. It constructed a tunnel through the Potrero San Pablo ridge to run track from the yard to a ferry landing from which freight cars could be transshipped to San Francisco. Where this track crosses the main street in Point Richmond, there remain two of the last operational wigwag grade crossing signals in the United States, and the only surviving examples of the "upside-down" type. The wigwag is a type of railroad crossing signal that was phased out in the 1970s and '80s across the country. There was controversy in 2005 when the State Transportation Authority ordered the BNSF railroad company to upgrade the railroad crossing signals. A compromise was achieved that included installing new modern crossing gates, red lights and bells while not removing, but simply shutting off, the historic ones and preserving their functionality for special events.

Standard Oil set up operations on land sold by Emily Tewksbury in 1901, including what is now the Chevron Richmond Refinery and tank farm, which Chevron still operates. There is a pier into San Francisco Bay south of Point Molate for oil tankers.

Early days The city of Richmond was incorporated in 1905. Until the enactment of prohibition in 1919, the city had the largest winery in the world; the small abandoned village of Winehaven remains fenced off along Western Drive in the Point Molate Area. Richmond was a small town at that time, with some industrial development centered on the waterfront based around the railroad and oil refineries.

The Pullman Company also established a major facility in Richmond in the early 20th century. The facility connected with both the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific and serviced their passenger coach equipment. The Pullman Company was a large employer of African American men, who worked mainly as porters on the Pullman cars. Many of them settled in the East Bay, from Richmond to Oakland, before World War II.

From 1917 and throughout the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was active in the city.

In 1930 the Ford Motor Company opened the Richmond Assembly Plant, which later moved to Milpitas in 1956. The old Ford plant in Richmond has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988. In 2004 it was purchased by developer Eddie Orton, who converted it into an events centre named Ford Point Building–The Craneway.

Wartime boomtown and shifting demographics At the onset of World War II, the four Richmond Shipyards were built along Richmond's waterfront, employing thousands of workers, many migrating to Richmond from other parts of the country after being recruited. These new workers generally lived in housing constructed specifically for the wartime boom, scattered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Berkeley and Albany. Many of these new migrants were Black Americans from the South and to a lesser extent the Midwest who took jobs in heavy industry and transport as those industries expanded to meet the needs of the war economy, while increased numbers of women also joined the industrial workforce for the first time as large numbers of working-age men were drafted for the war effort. During the war, Richmond's population increased dramatically, rising from 23,000 in 1940 to 114,899 in 1942 and peaking at around 120,000 by 1945.

A specially built rail line, the Shipyard Railway, transported workers to the shipyards. Kaiser's Richmond shipyards built 747 Victory and Liberty ships for the war effort, more than any other site in the U.S. The shipyards broke many records, including the completion of a Liberty ship in just five days. On average the yards built a new ship in 30 days.

The medical system established for the shipyard workers at the Richmond Field Hospital eventually became today's Kaiser Permanente HMO. The hospital remained in operation until 1993, when it was replaced by the Richmond Medical Center hospital, which has since expanded to a multi-building campus.

Point Richmond was Richmond's original commercial hub, but a new downtown arose in the centre of the city along Macdonald Avenue during the war. It was populated by department stores such as Kress, J.C. Penney, Sears, Macy's, and Woolworth's.

Post-war decline and rebound When the war ended the shipyard workers were no longer needed, and a decades-long population decline ensued. The census listed 99,545 residents in 1950. By 1960 much of the temporary housing built for the shipyard workers was torn down, and the population dropped to about 71,800.

Just before his April 1968 assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. had been working on plans for the Poor People's Campaign, including a multi-city tour of the U.S. with a stop in Richmond. His son, Martin Luther King III, completed the Poverty in America Tour in 2007, stopping in Richmond. Unrest in late June 1968, sparked by the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy, damaged businesses in downtown along Macdonald Avenue. Most notably, the Travalini Furniture Store was destroyed by fire, which was assumed to be the result of the violent protests, but according to Fraser Felter, who was a reporter for the Richmond Independent, police sources told him the fire was set to avoid a debt instead by destroying store records.

In the 1970s, the Hilltop area was developed in Richmond's northern suburbs, further depressing the downtown area as it drew retail clients and tenants away to the large indoor Hilltop Mall, which opened in 1976. The shopping mall, last named Hilltop Horizon, was opened under Taubman Centers, and has been sold since then to GM Pension Trust (1998), Simon Property Group (2007), Jones Lang LaSalle (2012), LBG Real Estate (2017), and Prologis (2021), who announced plans to close and demolish the building, reusing the land for a mixed-use development including residential, retail, and logistics facilities.

In the late 1990s the Richmond Parkway was built along Richmond's western industrial and north-western parkland, connecting Interstates 80 and 580. Construction of the Parkway, which follows the alignment of SR 93 as proposed in 1958, started in 1990 and completed in 1996 at a cost of $193 million. However, Caltrans issued a letter in 1998 saying it would not take over responsibility for the road unless it was brought up to expressway standards; as it was cost-prohibitive to convert it, the road remains the responsibility of the city and county.

In 2006, the city celebrated its centennial. This coincided with the repaving and streetscaping project of Macdonald Avenue. The city's old rundown commercial district along Macdonald has been designated the city's "Main Street District" by the state of California. This has led to funding of improvements in the form of state grants.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 52.5 square miles (136 km²), of which 30.1 square miles (78 km²) is land and 22.4 square miles (58 km²) (comprising 42.71%) is water. The city sits on 32 miles (51 km) of waterfront, more than any other city in the Bay Area. The city borders San Francisco Bay to the south-west and San Pablo Bay to the north-west, and includes Brooks Island and the Brother Islands entirely, and half of Red Rock Island.

There are several cities and unincorporated communities surrounding or bordering Richmond. To the south is the city of Albany which is in Alameda County and the city of El Cerrito. The unincorporated communities of East Richmond Heights, Rollingwood, Hasford Heights, and El Sobrante lie to the east. North Richmond to the west and San Pablo to the east are almost entirely surrounded by Richmond's city limits. To the north, Richmond borders the city of Pinole and the unincorporated areas of Bayview, Montalvin Manor, Hilltop Green, Tara Hills. Richmond borders Alameda, San Francisco, and Marin counties in the Bay and Red Rock Island.

Environment Richmond is home to many species of animals. Canada geese visit the city on their annual migrations. Harbor seals live on the Castro Rocks, and pigeons and gulls populate the sidewalks and parking lots. Tadpoles and frogs can be found in the local creeks and vernal pools. Field mice and lizards are also found. Herons and egrets nest in protected areas on Brooks Island. Deer, falcons, raccoons, ducks, foxes, owls, and mountain lions live in Wildcat Canyon and Point Pinole Regional Shoreline.

A license is needed for fishing on the waterfront or city waters but not on the piers, where in addition to crabs, sturgeon are plentiful and manta rays may also be found. Striped bass, bat rays, leopard sharks, surf perch, jacksmelt, sturgeon, white croaker, and flounders are also found. Richmond is one of the few places where you can find the rare Olympia oyster on the West Coast, in the waters along the refinery's shoreline. Rainbow trout have recently returned to San Pablo and Wildcat creeks.

Red-tailed hawks patrol the skies. Monarch butterflies migrate through the city on their journey between Mexico and Canada. Wildcat Marsh has two ponds where Canada geese often rest, and is also the home of the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse and California clapper rail. Another endangered species in the city is the Santa Cruz tarweed which survives alongside Interstate 80. Wildcat Canyon also hosts falcons and vultures. Threatened black rails also live in the city's marshes.

After a baby gray whale was beached on the Point Richmond shore in May 2007, its rotting corpse became bothersome to neighbors. Removal was delayed as various agencies argued over which would have to pay for it, at an eventual cost of $18,000.

Richmond is also home to one of the last pristine moist grassland habitats in the entire Bay Area at the former Campus Bay UC Berkeley Field Station near Meeker Slough. Richmond residents, however, have limited access to other environmental benefits. Because of the refineries located in Richmond, air quality is particularly low, and residents are especially at risk of air-pollution-related health issues.

In 2006, the city was sued by an environmental group for dumping raw sewage into the Bay. Councilmember Tom Butt was very vocal on the subject, accusing the city council of turning a blind eye to the problem.

Mayor McLaughlin has set a goal of installing five megawatts of solar photovoltaic generation in Richmond.

Economy Many industries have been and are still sited in Richmond. It had a dynamite and gunpowder works (the Giant Powder Company, closed in 1960, now the site of Point Pinole Regional Shoreline), the last active whaling station in the country at Point Molate (closed in 1971), and one of the world's largest wineries (Winehaven), closed by Prohibition in 1919.

During World War II, Richmond developed rapidly as a heavy industrial town, chiefly devoted to shipbuilding. Its major activity now is as a seaport, with 26 million tons of goods shipped through Port Richmond in 1993, mostly oil and petroleum products. The seaport is also home to a major oil refinery operated by Chevron Corporation. The Social Security Administration employs over 1,000 at its regional office and program service centre in Downtown Richmond. Kaiser Permanente's Richmond Medical Center hospital in the Downtown Richmond is one of the largest employers in the city. Galaxy Desserts is run and operated in the city. Vetrazzo, an award-winning green business that manufactures Recycled Glass Countertops out of waste glass such as beer bottles and old traffic lights, is located in the refurbished Ford Assembly Plant. Treeskunk Productions a video game animation studio is based in the town. Bay View recording studios are located in the city, and have worked with artists such as Smash Mouth. Photon Films, LLC, a video production and editing studio, is located in Harborfront area along the south-east shoreline.

Largest employers

1. Chevron Corporation Petrochemical

2. West Contra Costa Unified School District Education

3. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals Healthcare

4. United Parcel Service Shipping

5. Social Security Administration Government

6. Amazon.com services E-Commerce

7. Permanente Medical Group Healthcare

8. United States Postal Service (including San Francisco NDC) Government

9. Contra Costa County Government

10. City of Richmond Government.

Economy: Retail The Hilltop District includes Prologis Hilltop Center which had planned renovations, beginning with the addition of 99 Ranch Market, which have since been canceled. Two of their long time anchors, Sears and Macy's, both ceased operations there in 2020 and 2021 respectively. This leaves the mall with one last existing anchor of the Wal-Mart department store. Furthermore, the area is home to Hilltop Auto Mall, a 16-screen Century Theatres alongside, Hilltop Plaza Shopping Center.

The 23rd Street business district has evolved into a predominantly Latino neighborhood over the last twenty years as have the storefronts.

In the Downtown Richmond District the Richmond Shopping Center was built as part of the city's "main street" revitalization efforts. It is anchored by a Foods Co. supermarket and a Walgreens pharmacy.

The Macdonald 80 Shopping Center is a commercial plot along the trunk route of Macdonald Avenue which has been designated the city's main street under the aforementioned program. It was once anchored by the now-defunct Montgomery Wards and a Toys"R"Us. Demolition of the former buildings and construction of a new shopping mall were completed in 2006 and the centre is now anchored by a Target store.

Richmond Annex and Southwest Annex "Big-box" stores already in the city include Costco in the Point Isabel area and a Home Depot which is partially in Richmond. A controversial Kohl's department store has been proposed for Point Isabel. (See Point Isabel)

Redevelopment The former Richmond Shipyard No. 2 and Inner Harbor were transformed starting in the late 1980s into a multiunit residential area, now known as Marina Bay. Starting in the early 2000s, the city began an aggressive redevelopment effort spurring exurban tract housing, condominiums, townhomes, a transit village, and terraced hillside subdivisions. The city also created a redevelopment agency that refurbished Macdonald Avenue, funded the Metro Walk transit village, resurrected the Macdonald 80 Shopping Center, and created the Richmond Greenway rails-to-trails trail and urban farming project. Since 1996, new homes have increased in price by 32%, and there has been a 65.6% increase in the total amount of new dwellings built annually.

Country Club Vista is a development surrounding the Richmond Country Club to the south and north. It includes suburban style tract houses with cul-de-sac courts and small yards. Seacliff, at Point Richmond, is a development of luxury waterfront homes built on a terraced hillside. San Marcos is a series of about ten condominium multistory buildings between The Shops at Hilltop and Country Club Vista. Richmond Transit Village has been constructed in the former west parking lot and an adjacent empty lot of the combined Richmond BART and Amtrak station. The development is part of the city's downtown revitalization efforts.

Richmond CARES On September 11, 2013, the seven-member Richmond City Council, in a four-to-three vote, decided to pursue a scheme for using eminent domain to buy out mortgages. The vote was on "[setting] up a Joint Powers Authority to bring more cities into the plan". However, at least five votes would be needed before any mortgage could actually be bought out. North Las Vegas, Nevada and California governments including El Monte Fontana, the city of Ontario and San Bernardino County had considered such plans but decided not to pursue them. The vote made Richmond the first to accept the idea. The plan had been opposed by the vice-mayor and some members of the city council, who said it would "compromise" the city's finances.

Critics of the plan noted that the company Mortgage Resolution Partners stood to potentially profit: it would receive $4,500 from the new lenders for each refinanced mortgage for arranging the financing to purchase the original loans and for handling all legal, administrative, and refinancing operations (an amount matching what lenders are compensated for under the Federal HARP loan modification program). Critics also questioned the inclusion of wealthy neighborhoods such as "the area near the Richmond Country Club". The Western Contra Costa Association of Realtors hired a public relations agency and sent mass mailings warning against the scheme; its advertising was "funded, in part, by more than $70,000 from the California Association of Realtors and the National Associations of Realtors".

Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo had sued, claiming the program was unconstitutional. "[T]he National Housing Law Project, Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, Bay Area Legal Aid, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, and the California Reinvestment Coalition" opposed the suit, calling the banks' request for an injunction against the city "discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act".

Supporters of the plan include the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and Robert Hockett, a professor of law at Cornell University.

Casinos Many casinos have been proposed for the West Contra Costa area. Point Molate would have a casino, resort, and a luxury shopping mall. Sugar Bowl Casino proposes a casino, a steakhouse, and a buffet promoted by the Pomo Tribe's Scotts Valley Band near the border between North Richmond and the city of Richmond's Parchester Village, whose residents have lauded it as a boon to fighting crime by adding more of a police presence and creating jobs for shiftless youth, but residents from neighboring newly developed sub-divisions along the Richmond Country Club were fervently opposed based on potential losses to property values. Casino San Pablo has already been built in neighboring San Pablo, with 2,500 slots. The projects have been the subject of much civic debate; supporters contend that the often cash-strapped government would get a major new source of revenue, while opponents air their concerns over the ramifications, including an increase in already high crime rates, lowered property values, and worsening neighborhood quality of life.

Point Molate is currently slated to either become a housing and conference centre, a casino resort shopping area, or a large regional park.

In 2010, the city approved the environmental review of the plan in which the tribe agreed to contain development of the casino to the footprint of the buildings on the former naval depot site. The lobbying and reports required by Richmond have cost the tribe $15 million. This approval won over the region's strict environmentalists and many council members. Later that year residents were given the opportunity to weigh in on the issue and voted on the non-binding measure U to determine their approval of the project. 58% of voters opposed the $1 billion project. Citing the people's opposition and the inability to negotiate several key points with the developer, the city council voted down the project in 2011. Councilman Nat Bates remained a proponent of the plan with its projected 17,000 jobs, while the remainder of the council was chagrined at the fact that there was no guarantee that the jobs would go to Richmonders. The city of San Pablo, whose lifeline is their card club, Casino San Pablo, was elated. The Guideville Band of Pomo Indians was given the opportunity of 150 days to create a non-casino plan for the site such as alternatives in the environmental report for a convention centre, conference centre, hotel, spa, and housing.