$6B Development Plan At Former East Bay Naval Base Steams Ahead

A project that would bring $6B in development to a former naval weapons station in Concord, California, took a step forward as the city and development team, Concord First Partners, agreed to new terms.

The project has long been mired in red tape and various development hurdles, spanning nearly two decades of issues, including changes in development teams, according to the San Francisco Business Times.   

The new agreement calls for increasing the number of homes to more than 15,000 — over 3,000 more than were originally planned. The project has been underway since 2006 and has gone through several iterations. 

The new agreement will be discussed at two community meetings in the coming weeks, with the Concord City Council expected to consider the proposal early next year. 

Development is expected to occur in five phases over a 40-year period. Plans call for 6M SF of commercial space, in addition to the proposed single-family homes. The project was tweaked to include 25% more affordable housing in order to better improve the cost feasibility of the development. 

The initial phase will include over 2,800 homes, along with a park. A planned mixed-use campus on the site was delayed until the project’s second phase because of market conditions, according to the San Francisco Business Times. 

Concord has long been seen as a potential booming metro in the East Bay for housing development, in part due to proposed transit-oriented developments in the city, but demand has somewhat cooled in recent years. 

Transwestern’s Q3 multifamily report noted a 6.5% year-over-year rent growth for the city, along with a 4.6% vacancy rate, which was one of the higher reported vacancy rates across the East Bay, second to Oakland-Berkeley’s 6.7% rate.