A groundbreaking was held in May for the $350 million Pleasant Hill BART

A groundbreaking was held in May for the $350 million Pleasant Hill BART transit village in Contra Costa County, California. Lennertz Coyle & Associates (now HDR Town Planning of San Francisco, California) designed the project nearly five years ago. Working with developer Millennium Partners of New York City, McLarand Vasquez Emsiek (MVE) of Oakland, California, revised the plan. The physical form is similar to the original plan, but the square at the heart of the project has become attached to one of the blocks — with streets on three sides instead of all around.
Program changes have also been made. The 18-acre site includes 549 units of housing, including 100 for-sale units, 439 rental apartments, and 10 live-work units. Net residential density ranges from 62 units/acre to 118 units/acre. The project also includes 290,000 square feet of office space, a 20,000 sq. ft. conference center, 35,570 square feet of retail, and a site for a small civic building.
A 1,551-space parking garage is currently under construction. The actual transit village is not scheduled to start construction until 2008 and will take an estimated five years to complete. Funding for the structured parking, entitlements, and financing the mixed-use component of the project took the better part of five years between original design and groundbreaking, according to James Kennedy, redevelopment director for the Contra Costa County Redevelopment Agency.
The agency has been integral to getting this public-private partnership off the ground. It hired Opticos Design of Berkeley, California, as the Town Architect, and Opticos has worked with MVE to help ensure the original design intent of the ��transit-oriented development is met, Kennedy says. Avalon Bay Communities, a real estate investment trust, is building the residential portion of the project.