NIMBY’s days are numbered after landlord hikes rent
Oakland artist incubator space NIMBY hopes to move 300 miles north to a desert ranch
OAKLAND >> Michael Snook is tired.
For the past 15 years, he’s sat at the helm of NIMBY, an arts incubator that provides studio space and shared tools for makers and creators. Its alumni have built everything from giant installations for Burning Man to intricately crafted sculptures that can fit in the palm of your hand.
But now, its days in Oakland are numbered. NIMBY has until the end of September before its rent will triple. A nearly two-year search to find anything comparable in the Bay Area has been fruitless, leaving Snook exhausted. It’s a fate to befall many of the do-ityourself maker spaces across the city as the increasing demand for land incents property owners to find higher-paying tenants.
Murray Hill Partners, a real estate investment firm, purchased the Amelia Street block near 84th Street in East Oakland at the end of 2017, said Steve Wolmark, a partner in the firm. It made improvements to the neighboring buildings and began leasing to cannabis cultivation and manufacturing companies.
While Wolmark says he doesn’t have a new tenant lined up for NIMBY’s space, his company applied for a cannabis cultivation permit there, according to city officials. He says he needs to raise the rent closer to market rate to pay for deferred maintenance in the old warehouse. Demand from online retailers seeking distribution centers in dense urban areas, combined with the legalization of recreational marijuana, is making spaces like NIMBY’s scarce
eral of them sought to maximize their illicit gains by deducting their bribe payments from their income taxes as fake charitable contributions. And they did so from perches at the apex of money and power in the United States.”
The scandal revolved around corrupt California college admission consultant William “Rick” Singer, who has pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy and fraud charges and cooperated with investigators. A sentencing date for Singer has not been set.
Prosecutors said Singer offered wealthy parents two avenues to cheating their kids’ way into elite universities with money paid through his bogus education charity. The payments would go to corrupt test proctors who made special arrangements for the students to take the SAT or ACT entrance exams and then corrected their answers, or to bribe university coaches to flag the applicants as athletic recruits with phony profiles.
Sixteen parents, including Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin and several from the Bay Area, continue to fight the charges. Trials could begin in October and stretch into next year.
Prosecutors said that beginning in 2015, the Henriquezes
paid Singer nearly $50,000 for test cheating for their two daughters and $400,000 toward bribing the former Georgetown University tennis coach to admit the older girl as a “side door” recruit to his team.
During a car ride home with Singer’s corrupt test proctor after he corrected the older girl’s answers on her SAT exam, prosecutors said, the proctor, who also has pleaded guilty, “gloated with Elizabeth Henriquez and her daughter, celebrating their successful fraud.” The older daughter was admitted to Georgetown.
Prosecutors said that although Manuel Henriquez acknowledged participating in the conspiracy, he
“continues to deny that he was complicit in the fake athletic recruitment,” even though he directed the $400,000 payment to Singer’s sham charity. The Henriquezes wrote off the payment as a charitable donation on their 2016 tax returns.
Prosecutors said that in exchange for test cheating for their younger daughter, Manuel Henriquez used his influence at Northeastern University, where they say he is a “prominent alumnus,” to secure admission for another Singer client. The Henriquez’ younger daughter was admitted to Northwestern University.
In recorded conversations with Singer in late 2018 and early 2019, when he was cooperating with investigators, prosecutors said the Henriquezes schemed with him to align their stories.
“So what’s your story,” prosecutors quoted Elizabeth Henriquez in one of those calls with Singer, who they said replied “that you gave your money to our foundation to help underserved kids.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth Henriquez answered. “Those kids have to go to school.”
In a later conversation, Manuel Henriquez told Singer that “there’s no paper trail of money” in the scheme with the younger daughter because he helped Singer get another student into Northeastern.
Georgetown would not comment on any specific students connected to the admissions scandal but said last May that the university had dismissed two students admitted based on false claims through the former tennis coach, Gordon Ernst, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of participating in the bribery scheme.
Northwestern University had no comment Tuesday about the status of the younger Henriquez daughter or any other student connected to the case.
Lawyers for the Henriquezes have not yet indicated in court filings what sentence they consider appropriate.