Tucked away in the back streets of Berkeley California is a festival of second hand and recovered items. Urban Ore is like a recovered materials theme park. With 30,000 square feet of warehouse sitting on a 2.5-acre site, an ything you’re looking for is likely to be here.
Initiated in the 1980’s by Dan Knapp and Mary Lou Van Deventer, this for-profit started by salvaging reusable items from a local transfer station.
After evolving and moving several times, including being based a van parked at the transfer station, being flooded in 1982 and occupying space earmarked for a waste incinerator rejected by Berkeley residents, Urban Ore moved to its current ‘mega-store’ site in 2002.
Encouraged by help from the City of Alameda who have assisted in purchasing their current site, they have continued to allow Urban Ore’s access to reusable items from the local transfer station which they do daily.
Now very ably led by Max Wechsler, Urban Ore is a local hero and simply a destination. Inside the store is a wonderland of interesting, useful, and amazing stuff. Whilst they don’t specialise on construction and demolition materials, their yard area is a treasure trove of fixtures, fittings and materials. The carpark is brimming with customers there to pick up cool, unique, vintage, curious or just unavailable elsewhere.
Max has picked up on trends in waste including creating a space especially for recovered solar panels that are discarded during deconstructions and upgrades. The building has a currently unused mezzanine floor (currently occupied by a raccoon) which Max is also plan to develop into and educational and creative space.
Using an ethos of having huge stock levels and low prices, Urban Ore have become a recognised part of local life in Berkeley, attracting a great following and loyal customer base.
https://urbanore.com/about-us/
Thanks to Max Wechsler for hosting me at Urban Ore.
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