Excerpt:

Some 150 dignitaries, city staffers and civic affairs-watchers gathered Monday under drizzly skies and the jet at Alameda Point’s North Gate to commemorate the Navy’s handoff of 1,379 acres of the former Naval Air Station to the city.

City leaders have waited for over a decade to get the deeds to the property, much of which they hope to make over as a new community with 1,400 homes, a vibrant waterfront and businesses that will replace 9,000 of the jobs that were lost when the federal government shuttered the base, in 1997. They wasted no time in making their sales pitches, using Monday’s ceremony as an opportunity to promote the Point as a prime development spot.