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1950 The post-war period brought tremendous growth in both industry and housing. Like most suburbs in California, San Leandro's population grew dramatically, reaching 66,000 by 1960. Some housing development occurred downtown with the construction of apartment buildings, but most new resi- dential construction was single family detached homes in adjacent neighbor- hoods. In 1950, two decades after its introduction, the Key System was dismantled. With the completion of Bay, Golden Gate and San Mateo Bridges, as well as an improved roadway and highway network, the automobile became the most flexible and dominant means of transportation. The automobile's popularity changed downtown. The downtown had been originally developed with traditional storefronts along the streets with limited on-street parking, and most of the customers walked or rode public transit. With more customers driving, merchants had to offer parking for customers or risk losing them to new outlying shopping centers where park- ing was plentiful. The first downtown development to respond to the emerging dominance of the automobile was Pelton Center, built in 1948. Rather than focusing on the street, Pelton Center was built around an interior parking lot, with a collection of shops connected by a covered pedestrian walkway. In addition to this internal focus, Pelton Center maintained a street frontage, and so maintained to a degree the original urban street form. Considered a bold and somewhat risky design at the time, Pelton Center proved to be a successful retail model. Customers liked the convenient parking and internal walk- ways, and Pelton Center, like the similar Town & Country Villages found in other Bay area communities, became a prototype of a new retail form. Industry continued to develop. Between 1942 and 1967, eighty-seven in- dustrial parcels were annexed to the city. Agriculture declined, and ultimately was replaced by housing. By 1965, industries included food processing, air- craft parts, paper products, paint, electronic and office equipment, furniture and wood specialties, chemicals, metal products, and scientific instruments. ,~ Many downtown buildings were razed in this period to make way for new types of development. New buildings were usually bigger and bulkier, and small shops were replaced by larger stores. The new buildings were of- ten pulled back from the street to provide parking for customers in front. In some cases, buildings were removed to make way for parking lots, replacing continuous retail street frontage with gaps of parking. These lots made it r.;~ r. r J : ~ ~/ ' • l ~ ~~~ i .` •~ Q ~ t4 11~i ~_~ ~ ~ >F f ' ' ~ ;~ .. M (~ ~ page 30 October 2000 San Leandro Downtown Plan & Urban Design Guidelines Pelton Center, 1948