The buildings of the Port of Richmond’s former Terminal 1 are seen in Richmond, Calif. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
RICHMOND — The city’s ongoing effort to turn its formerly industrial shoreline into an asset could soon give rise to a grand waterfront development featuring more than 300 condominiums, a park, shops and trails.
If approved, the project in Point Richmond will be the largest development the city has embarked on in at least a decade, capitalizing on the area’s stellar views, history and still-affordable land. But it has already met with opposition by some residents who complain that it is too big and will harm their way of life and the surrounding environment.
The project, called Terminal One, would be located east of the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park, a popular destination for picnics and hikes and even home to a sandy beach.
“It’s a really incredible site, with views of Mount Tamalpais, Oakland, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco,” said Paul Menzies, chief executive officer of Laconia Development, currently in negotiations with the city to purchase the property for $10 million.
“It’s hard to find sites around the San Francisco Bay that are right on the water, so this is pretty rare.”
Menzies compares the proposed redevelopment to New York City’s Highline, which converted a former spur of the New York Central Railroad into an elevated walkable promenade with restaurants and shops. In addition to housing, Terminal One would refurbish a pier that is more than a century old, create a tidelands habitat and marine ecology area, and put in a pedestrian and bicycling trail that connects to Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park.
The existing warehouses on-site, formerly used for port operations, would be demolished and their pieces integrated as shade structures where pedestrians can rest and take in a 180-degree view of San Francisco Bay.
“If you go back 80 years, cities turned their backs to their waterfronts, which were appropriated by industrial users and often treated very badly by them,” said Richard Mitchell, the city’s planning director. “Worldwide, communities are interested in recapturing access to their waterfront, and Richmond is no different.”
But amid the dream to reorient this city of industry — home of a Chevron refinery, whose ocher-tinted storage tanks dot the surrounding hillsides — some locals say a development of this magnitude has no place at the location.
Dozens of Richmond residents have written the city with concerns over the height of the condos (which would be up to five stories), impacts on birds and other wildlife, inadequate parking, even buildings’ impact on wind direction and potential negative effects on sailors.
“The $10 million the city will get will come and go, but this enormous project that makes no effort to fit within its environs will be here for decades,” wrote resident Beth Conklin, who lives in a nearby development, roughly the same size as Terminal One. “This project will negatively impact the living experience of everyone living in Richmond and who visits the park and surrounding areas. (The city) must reject it.”
Neighbors swear they are not NIMBYs. But, they say, the project should be scaled down. Many are worried about traffic jams, with the houses expected to generate an additional 560 cars.
“There must be hundreds and hundreds of people who already come here on the weekends to access the beach, which is quite nice,” said Mary Lee Cole, who also lives nearby. “With 300-plus new houses and not even two (parking) spaces for each house, where will everyone park?”
This week, the Richmond Planning Commission began discussing the project, two years after the developer first approached the city with the idea. If entitlements are approved by end of summer, an entirely optimistic timeline given the pace of city government, the project could break ground as early as next spring, Menzies said.
The developer would also give an estimated $4 million toward affordable housing, as part of the city’s inclusionary housing allowance, funds that would be used to build below-market housing in Richmond’s downtown, according to Mitchell, the planning director.
Contact Karina Ioffee at 510-262-2726 or kioffee@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/kioffee.
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