How do dozens of Fulton Street’s metal poles just vanish? It’s an ‘only in Fresno’ mystery

Marek Warszawski
·5 min read

The revitalization of downtown Fresno was supposed to include bollards.

Four years and more than $70,000 later, the bollards — short metal posts — have never been used. Even stranger, no one seems to know where they are.

“We’ve wanted to use them,” said Jimmy Cerracchio, president and CEO of the Downtown Fresno Partnership, “but we can’t find them.”

When Fulton Street replaced the old Fulton Mall, transforming a pedestrian mall into a two-way street with wide sidewalks and restored public art, downtown property owners still wanted the ability to close the road for special events.

Which is why plans for the $20 million reopening project included bollards, which are commonly used to block or divert traffic. Numerous types of non-permanent bollards are available. Some are retractable; they neatly collapse into built-in receivers that sit flush with the ground. Others are removable.

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Fresno opted for the removable kind. And if you look closely on Fulton between Tuolumne and Inyo streets, you’ll see 48 metal plates (eight in a row at six intersections) embedded in the asphalt.

Those metal plates are actually hinged cover lids that tilt up and serve as a lockable fastener for each bollard.

That is, if someone could locate their whereabouts.

Steve Skibbie, a downtown Fresno resident and photographer, recently asked about the bollards on social media and got some interesting replies.

Kirk James, co-owner of Root General and a former Downtown Fresno Partnership board member, has been asking similar questions.

“I’ve brought them up at planning meetings: ‘Why don’t we bring those things out instead of paying someone to set up wooden barricades?’ ” James said. “Well, I guess they’re missing. No wonder I never really got an answer.”

How do dozens of metal poles go missing?

How do dozens of powder-coated steel bollards that measure 3 feet in length and weigh about 30 pounds apiece go missing?

There’s no air-tight answer, but deductive reasoning tells us they were either misplaced or stolen from the building in which they were stored.

Missing Fulton Street bollards were previously stored by the Downtown Fresno Partnership in the abandoned Berkeley’s building, which is unsafe due to black mold, but appear to be missing.
Missing Fulton Street bollards were previously stored by the Downtown Fresno Partnership in the abandoned Berkeley’s building, which is unsafe due to black mold, but appear to be missing.

Today, the Berkeley’s building at 887 Fulton, stationed outside the Kern Street entrance to Chukchansi Park, is known for something else by those who venture inside or even too close: hazardous black mold.

“Just walk by the building and take a whiff,” Fresno developer Mehmet Noyan said. “There’s a musty smell, and that’s not a good sign.”

The Berkeley’s building has been largely vacant since 1982 when its namesake store relocated to Manchester Center. These days it is mainly used by the Downtown Fresno Partnership for storage — at least by those brave enough to brave the conditions.

“We’ve gone in there with masks on and you can’t do much because it’s impossible to breathe because of the mold,” said Cerracchio, who arrived in April 2018 six months after Fulton Street’s much-ballyhooed reopening.

Noyan, whose firm had a City Council-approved sale to purchase the building for housing until the deal fell through, has been inside the Berkeley’s building “about 10 times” over the past year.

“I would never go in there without a change of clothes and a haz-mat mask on,” Noyan said. “I’m not certain it’s black mold, but there’s a lot of leakage coming from the roof. The building is in bad shape.”

Noyan can recall seeing Christmas decorations and the walls that used to form downtown Fresno’s holiday ice rink, but no bollards.

“I’m pretty observant and I didn’t see them,” he said.

City: Bollards not our responsibility

The city has deftly sidestepped any culpability. In an email response to my questions, Public Works Director Scott Mozier said the bollards have been in the “possession and care” of the Downtown Fresno Partnership since Fulton Street reopened.

“City staff is of the understanding that the Downtown Fresno Partnership had stored them in the Berkeley Building,” Mozier wrote.

“At the time, the partnership desired to take the lead on all Fulton Street special events, which includes traffic control, and therefore wanted to take responsibility for the bollards.”

Stainless streel removal bollards (similar to the ones pictured) were purchased for the reopening of Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. They have never been used and have since gone missing.
Stainless streel removal bollards (similar to the ones pictured) were purchased for the reopening of Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. They have never been used and have since gone missing.

Craig Scharton, the former City Council member who preceded Cerracchio at the Downtown Fresno Partnership and was heavily involved in the reopening, said the bollards were nearly left out of the project’s plans before he added them back in at the last minute.

Scharton said he opted for removal bollards over the retractable type after being advised that the retractable ones won’t collapse into their receivers when bent or dented by a vehicle.

“How come every other city in America can figure out bollards except for Fresno?” Scharton asked. “It should not be this tough at all. This is mind-boggling.”

Building, Kern plaza target for thieves

Among those cities is Clovis, which installed retractable bollards at four Old Town Clovis intersections in 2019 and utilizes them for events like the farmer’s market.

So where are Fresno’s missing bollards?

While City Councilmember Miguel Arias thinks they were misplaced (“The city has a lot of downtown buildings used for storage,” he said), there’s an equal if not greater likelihood they were stolen out of the Berkeley’s building. Which, according to former Downtown Fresno Partnership ambassador Lee Blackwell, has been the target of numerous recent break-ins.

In the plaza directly outside the front entrance, city officials recently ordered the removal of three bronze statues for similar reasons. And two days before the Fulton Street Party, thieves attempted to steal another metal statue a half-block away.

Where are the police, you ask? Off fighting violent crime.

“The (Berkeley’s) building has been broken into so many times over the last year … despite efforts to keep people out, and with all the stuff that has been stolen I wouldn’t be surprised if (the bollards) were in the mix too,” said Blackwell, who changed jobs two months ago.

Fences and gates block each door of the Berkeley’s building, meaning would-be thieves likely entered through a broken window. Now picture them handing four dozen bollards weighing 30 pounds each through a small window and into a nearby waiting car. That must’ve taken quite some time. And all that metal had to be “recycled” somewhere.

A peek inside the Berkeley’s building at 887 Fulton Street in downtown Fresno, California, taken Dec. 1, 2021, through an opening in a boarded up window. Bollards purchased for the 2017 Fulton Street reopening were stored here by the Downtown Fresno Partnership. The bollards were never used and have since gone missing.
A peek inside the Berkeley’s building at 887 Fulton Street in downtown Fresno, California, taken Dec. 1, 2021, through an opening in a boarded up window. Bollards purchased for the 2017 Fulton Street reopening were stored here by the Downtown Fresno Partnership. The bollards were never used and have since gone missing.