West Oakland Works

After twelve years of business development and two years negotiating a bank loan and finding a space, fashion designer Skylier Blanchard opened Skylier Wear in June 2011.  Set in a spacious West Oakland shop facing West Grand Avenue (at Linden), Skylier Wear is full of colorful women's clothes and accoutrements, and occasionally models, perfume displayers, makeup artists and photographers—as well as customers.

Magnolia Editions has a twenty-year history in printmaking and papermaking, collaborating with artists using a full range of techniques and media in an open and experimental environment.  Located on Magnolia Street in industrial West Oakland for many years, Magnolia continues to encourage experimentation, increasingly using state-of-the-art digital processes to produce and publish fine art projects, including unique and editioned works on paper, artist books and public art.

Back to the Roots/BTTR Ventures was founded in 2009 by Alejandro Velez (below, left) and Nikhil Arora as a 100% sustainable urban mushroom farm. They met at UC Berkeley and started it as a school project. Focusing on bringing sustainable grow-at-home products into households across the country, the company's vision is to serve as a standard bearer of innovation in our community and to inspire others to work towards a more sustainable future.

"I found West Oakland to be very centrally located and the local government services were very helpful," said Suzanne Golter, who brought her Happy Hound Play & Daycare to West Oakland in 2004 after assessing that the East Bay needed a place for dog daycare, boarding & training.

Seven years later, it is a thriving place at 1695 34th Street on the top end of Mandela. It has room for over 100 dogs and also provides training, baths and other services. "Dogs love it here," says Ms Gotler, "And we love them right back!"