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Take the "1st Choice, 2nd Lab" lawn signs down.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) announced on Monday that Alameda Point will not be site of its second campus. That plum fell to the Richmond Field Station.

"The University of Californiaowned (Richmond) site presents the best opportunity to solve the lab's pressing space problems while allowing for long term growth and maintaining the 80-year tradition of close cooperation with the UC Berkeley campus," UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau stated in a press release.

Though many in the city have expressed disappointment that LBNL did not select Alameda Point, they also are rather upbeat about the future of the former Naval Air Station.

"While we would have loved to have welcomed LBNL to our community, we still have 50 acres of prime waterfront real estate at Alameda Point ready for another major user to call home," announced Mayor Marie Gilmore in a press release.

"Alameda Point will become the economic engine for the city once again." After the city announced plans to woo the lab last January, it began to make significant steps to further develop Alameda Point. Using the lab as a bargaining tool, the city was able to speed up its negotiations with the Navy over transferring the Point into Alameda control.

The Navy had asked $108.5 million for the old base, but at the end of last year's negotiations, the Navy decided on a no-cost conveyance.

The Navy will start to hand over parts of the Point this June. If all goes well, the city should own all the 918-acres of Alameda Point by December 2019.

The no-cost conveyance was not the only positive that came out of the lab-wooing experience. Many city residents became actively engaged in trying to persuade LBNL to bring the lab to Alameda.

Besides putting up supportive law signs, residents also packed community rallies aimed at drawing the second LBNL to the city. A July barbecue and city PowerPoint presentation about the lab drew nearly 600 people. "The bottom line is that it unified the community toward that common original goal and that's so important.

I feel very positive about it," said Councilman Doug Dehaan. "The information generated by the city for the LBNL selection process will be used to help finalize plans for the development of the base and to attract other major commercial and institutional users to the site," Alameda Point Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Ott said. She also said that city has a development strategy that will work "with or with out the LBNL" and that the city will continue to work on that strategy.

An Alameda LBNL would have taken up 45 acres of Alameda Point near the U.S.S. Hornet Museum. Had LBNL chosen Alameda Point, the lab would have consolidated the Joint BioEnergy Institute, the Joint Genome Institute, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and Life Sciences Division into one campus here. Instead, LBNL will consolidate these institutes in Richmond. Currently, those science programs, which house 2,000 scientists, are scattered around the East Bay.

Alameda is not the only city currently mourning the loss of the LBNL. The lab's operators were considering four other cities for the second campus: Albany, Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley.