Concord approves concepts for billion-dollar, 40-year development at Naval Weapons Station site

CONCORD — The ink is drying on the sign-off of the latest vision for the long-anticipated development at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station — a billion-dollar project projected to require five phases of development spread over 40 years.

Hoping that the third time’s the charm to meld the community’s expectations with a transformation that financially works out, city officials have tentatively signed off on the master developer’s conceptual plan for a huge mixed-use, transit-oriented community on the 2,300-acre swath of land.

Brookfield Properties’ current renderings feature roughly 6 million square-feet of commercial space, 880 acres of greenspace and more than 12,200 homes — 25% of which will be reserved for affordable pricing.

Earlier iterations have hit numerous snags since the turn of the century; agreements with two prospective master developers were eventually scrapped following labor disputes, power plays and allegations of backroom deals.

After several months of negotiations, Brookfield reached an agreement with city officials on a conceptual preliminary land-use plan for the sprawling, contaminated military site, which is sandwiched between the 2,600-acre Thurgood Marshall Regional Park and residential neighborhoods along the city’s northern border — stretching from the area of Highway 4 and Willow Pass Road to Concord High School and Bailey Road. The initial estimate of the project’s price is approximately $6 billion.

For scale, UC Berkeley’s core 178-acre campus could fit within the massive parcel 13 times, while more than 16 Lake Merritts would fill the same space. The huge swath of land is located south of the still-existing Military Ocean Terminal Concord, sitting on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

On Tuesday, the Concord City Council — acting as the Local Reuse Authority (LRA) — unanimously approved Brookfield’s term sheet, a non-binding document outlining potential future contracts between the LRA and the developer.

That vote was finalized less than two weeks before the March 30 expiration of an exclusive negotiating agreement with Brookfield, which was signed in September.

An extension to that agreement was also approved Tuesday, allowing Brookfield up to 48 months to negotiate a property transfer agreement with the U.S. Navy — twice the length of time officials initially anticipated — as well as to draft a specific plan, prepare an Environmental Impact Report and tackle the necessary legal clearances and permits before any construction can begin.

Josh Roden, president of Brookfield’s Northern California land and housing division, said his team is “confident that it won’t take that long.”

In the meantime, the Navy will clean up toxic chemicals that leached into the ground from weapons stored on-site in the mid-20th century, while the Environmental Protection Agency also assesses the soil for PFAS — the common name for a group of widely used, long-lasting chemicals — and other harmful substances.

The term sheet features a key labor agreement with Contra Costa County’s Construction and Building Trades Council and the Nor Cal Carpenters Union — one of the city’s most crucial requirements for the massive redevelopment project.

Brookfield has also proposed to provide $146 million in construction costs for basic infrastructure supporting the roughly 3,000 affordable housing units, alongside an additional $50 million contribution to those projects.

Barry Long, principal of Urban Design Associates, which has worked on the planning effort, lauded the work that’s gone into the project so far, but emphasized that the current plans are conceptual. He said it will take time to iron out a final design, as well as to address concerns about impacts to current residents and infrastructure.

“The redevelopment of the Naval Weapons Station is an extension of the city’s fabric — it’s not an island,” Long said, describing how the project’s next steps will focus on stitching the community together as seamlessly as possible. “We have a long way to go together, but it is a conceptual plan that has had a lot of love and care put into it.”

The project’s first master developer, Lennar FivePoint, signed initial agreements in May of 2016. However, the city eventually pulled the plug on its partnership in March of 2020, after the company couldn’t agree on labor agreements with local builders. After that fallout, the council tapped local developer Concord First Partners, partially owned by the controversial Seeno family. But trouble began on that proposal by May of 2022, and Concord officials voted 3-2 to scrap the developer’s plans in January of 2023.

Councilmember Laura Hoffmeister, who represents District 1 directly south of the Navy-owned land, praised Brookfield’s community outreach efforts as a reason the project has come together.

“You can really see the difference in tone and tenor of our community this evening in our council chambers,” Hoffmeister said. “Everybody’s done tiring about all of this high-end stuff, and they’re all wanting to get into the nitty-gritty details that we keep hearing.”

Unlike the two previous developers, Brookfield and its current plan had a broad base of supporters Tuesday night.

That included Tom Hansen, business manager of IBEW Local 302 representing the county’s electrical workers and president of the county’s Construction and Building Trades Council.

“There’s a long history of how much it took to get here, all the ups and downs,” Hansen said. “Everybody seems to be happy for the first time, so let’s just move forward and stay happy.”