Look fast. A piece of California history is fading, timber by massive old-growth timber. The first of seven gigantic wooden warehouses that opened during World War II, storing everything from sacks of mail and pallets of food to tanks and artillery bound for Europe and the Pacific, during three wars, are being dismantled to make way for a new, intermodal rail terminal at the Port of Oakland and a large development by the city of Oakland.
The so-called 800-series warehouses, each as wide and long as an aircraft carrier, are among the few remaining relics of the former Oakland Army Base, built near rail and shipping lanes to augment the main Army headquarters at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
The base was already under construction when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and was quickly put into service. It closed in September 1999. In between, thousands of troops who fought in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam passed through its portals. For some, it was the last U.S. soil they ever touched.
Dozens of other buildings that made up the Camp John T. Knight Army Base — administration offices, barracks, dining hall, officers' club, bowling alley, gymnasium, nail center, library, dispensary and heater among them — have been torn down. Now, it's time for the massive 800-series warehouses to go, and Building 802 is first on the list. Zaccor Companies of Alameda won the salvage contract with a $585,000 bid.
The company had done other recent quick and dirty demolition jobs for the port, but the warehouses, all constructed mostly of untreated and unpainted old-growth redwood and Douglas fir, require gentler handling.
Materials from the building must be salvaged and recycled, an expensive and time-consuming exercise that involves taking the structures apart nail by nail, bolt by bolt and board by board so the materials are not damaged, said Marilyn Sandifur, port spokeswoman. Stopwaste.org is overseeing the recycling program and monitoring the amount of wood going out.
The contract also requires that Zaccor join with a nonprofit organization to hire local residents to work on the project, and the company chose Men of Valor, a job-training program through Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland.
Everything is going well, said Scott Klopf, Zaccor's general manager. His firm also joined with Vintage Lumber Works, which is finding buyers for the timber around the world.
The offerings range from the less desirable tongue-and-groove roof decking bound for Mexico to long, pristine boards sorted 28 to a bundle, 24 to 26 tons per truckload.
Then there are the big boys: header boards ranging from 24- to 32-feet-long and 14inches wide. About seven semi trailers have been hauled away so far, and Klopf estimates that the reusable timber from the building will come close to filling 40 truckloads — about 1,000 tons.
"The other buildings we mechanically wrecked, but with 802 we're manually pulling all the nails and pulling all the boards and stacking timber-by-timber," Klopf said. "It's worth quite a bit of money, I can't tell you what it's worth... but it has a very good value."
The company is also selling the steel trusses to Schnitzer Steel for $380 per ton, cash. The price was $280 when they bid for the contract, so the salvage operation has really paid off in unexpected ways, Klopf said.
They've also been able to salvage the rocks and paper from the roof, both of which are being recycled, he said.
But perhaps the nicest surprise has been the partnership with Bruce Cox and Men of Valor, a nonprofit job-training program for former offenders and at-risk young men run from Acts Full Gospel Church.
Four men have been hired, and they are all doing well, he said. So well that Zaccor paid their fees to have them join the laborers' union, and they are earning journeyman's wages while they work on the port job.
Jo Ann Yoshioka-George, a supervisor of employment resources and development programs for the Port of Oakland's social responsibility division, said the Port allocated a larger budget for the contract because of the labor-intensive nature of the work required by Base Reuse plan and an environmental study.
In addition to the salvage of materials and local hiring, the mitigation plan requires that a memorial be created in future Gateway development at the base. Oral histories will be collected from military and civilian staff members, and a historical Web site is being created.
"Deconstruction is an expensive procedure, and we want to promote recycling and local workforce hiring," she said. "So for the port and the contractor and the community to line up on the same page is really a wonderful thing, so we're not looking at it as a bottom-line project."
Reach Cecily Burt at 510-208-6441 or cburt@bayareanewsgroup.com.
