In this edition of our Semi-Monthly newsletter, we share five stories relevant to Emeryville that you may have missed including:
- Once Emeryville-Headquartered Ask Jeeves shuts down Search Site
- Atrium Property Sold for Half of recent Purchase Price
- Emeryville Couple fined $915K in Oakland Tree Cutting Controversy
- Missing Teen Located at Emeryville Hotel
- Bungalow Lived in by Accused Domestic Terrorist Being Auctioned Off
Once Emeryville Headquartered Ask.com Shutters Search Site
Internet search engine pioneer Ask.com officially shut down their search site on May 1. Originally founded as “Ask Jeeves” in Berkeley in 1996, it rose to prominence while headquartered at the EmeryStation campus holding its IPO in 1999.
In the late 1990s, Ask Jeeves was among a half-dozen search engines along with Yahoo!, Excite and Lycos duking it out for marketshare.
Ask Jeeves peaked at about 700 employees in 2000 before the dot com bubble trimmed this figure by a quarter. Google came along in 1998 soon dominated the search landscape rising to the #1 Search Engine by 2003.
Ask Jeeves eventually moved their headquarters to Oakland adorning a prominent downtown skyscraper at 555 12th street. They were acquired by technology holding company IAC in 2005 shedding their butler mascot and rebranding as Ask.com in 2006.
Atrium Property Sold for Half of recent Purchase Price
Boston-based developer Longfellow Real Estate Partners’ once-ambitious Emeryville biotech campus has effectively unraveled, marking another casualty of the Bay Area’s cooling life sciences boom.
The first cracks appeared in 2023, when a major tenant pulled out of plans to occupy roughly 150,000 square feet, forcing a sharp downsizing of the project. Momentum continued to fade as the development became entangled in litigation with property owners after Longfellow fell behind on payments tied to the site.
The collapse of the vision for the 1650 65th Street property has since culminated in a discounted sale to San Francisco investment firm Graymark Capital, underscoring how quickly Emeryville’s once-hot lab market has cooled and how sharply valuations have reset across the East Bay biotech sector.
Emeryville Couple fined $915K in Oakland Tree Cutting Controversy
An Emeryville couple has been fined an unprecedented $915,000 for violating The City of Oakland’s protected tree ordinance.
Matthew Bernard and Lynn Warner purchased the hillside lot along Claremont Avenue near the Claremont Hotel in 2019 with the intention of building a home.
According to the city, they ignored warnings and illegally cut down 38 protected trees—some on neighboring parcels. The fine was calculated based on the value of each tree which included live oaks, broad-leaf maples, buckeyes and other native species.
Missing Teen Located at Emeryville Hotel
An East Bay teenager reported missing after meeting a man online was found by police leaving an Emeryville hotel with a 46-year-old man, according to authorities. Officers say the girl appeared disoriented when they located her hours after her family reported her missing, prompting immediate intervention at the scene.
Police allege that Bradley Johnston of Riverside County had been communicating with the minor through a “hookup” app called Down before arranging the encounter at the hotel. He was taken into custody for questioning as investigators reviewed several potential charges, including statutory rape and possession of an unregistered gun.
Johnston was later released on $135,000 bail.
Bungalow Lived in by Accused Domestic Terrorist Auctioned Off
The Welsh countryside bungalow where fugitive Daniel Andreas San Diego was apprehended has been put up for auction.
San Diego purchased the property in 2023, telling neighbors he was an IT worker using the alias “Danny Webb.”
He recently lost his legal challenge to extradition and is now awaiting transfer back to the U.S., where he will be taken into federal custody and arraigned on alleged terrorism-related bombing charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.
