The Dublin Planning Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved the 300-unit Amador Station project, positioning the city’s downtown to receive more than 900 new housing units over the next few years.
The site development review permit is one of the major entitlements needed by nonprofit developer Bridge, which was selected by the city after an RFP process, according to Amy Million, the project’s principal planner.
Full approval for the project, situated on BART-owned land adjacent to the West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, is conditional upon Dublin City Council approving its community benefits agreement and affordable housing agreement, she said. Amador Station is scheduled to go before the council Sept. 7.
Located at 6501 Golden Gate Drive, the project site neighbors a 499-unit development from developer AvalonBay at 6700 St. Patrick Way that was approved in 2018. Another 114-unit affordable housing development for seniors, a byproduct of the St. Patrick Way project that’s currently making its way through the city’s approval process, is also nearby.
All these sites are within the Downtown Dublin Specific Plan, according to Million, which includes CEQA approval for up to 2,500 units. The plan was adopted in 2011, and since 2012 just over 1,704 units have been “reserved” by developers, city documents show, including the 913 in the city’s development pipeline. Seven hundred and ninety-one of those units have been built.
“We are finding Dublin to be open for business, and it is refreshing,” Bridge Executive Vice President Brad Wiblin told me, referencing the city’s downtown specific plan. “AvalonBay came through asking to build, we came through asking to build, and they said — go forth and build. It doesn’t always work that way.”
Amador Station’s 300 units will span two buildings and be built out over two phases: the first, a 136-unit building, will be “deeply affordable,” Brad Wiblin said. Those units will cater to individuals making less than 43% of area median income; of those, 41 fully furnished units will be reserved solely for individuals who have experienced or who are at risk of experiencing homelessness.
The second, 164-unit phase is also slated to be affordable, Wiblin said, though resident AMIs have not yet been determined. The project will include 238 parking spots and utilize state density bonus law to lessen parking minimums from from 1.5 spaces to .79 spaces per residential unit.
The project will also include 2,200 square feet of ground floor retail space to house a cafe or similar use, according to city documents. As part of its proposed community benefits agreement, Bridge has agreed to improve existing pedestrian infrastructure at the West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, including the construction of a BART plaza. Development costs for the 136-unit building, project infrastructure such as roadways and sewage and the plaza are expected to total around $105 million, Wiblin told me.
Dublin has agreed to contribute $3 million from its affordable housing fund toward the project, with an additional $7 million coming from Alameda County’s A1 Bond Measure Funds, which support affordable housing.
Bridge also intends to apply for additional funding from the state, Wiblin told me. The project could break ground in the next two years, he said, depending on whether it is granted funding from its first round of applications.
Bridge is acquiring the lease for the two-parcel property from a development subsidiary of investment firm Barings, Wibling said, which had planned to construct a hotel on the property. Those plans never ultimately came to fruition. He declined to disclose the terms of the lease Bridge had negotiated with BART. The lease is not yet public record.
As of March of this year, the city had a combined 1,536 units of very low-, low- and moderate-income housing units left to build per the terms of its current state-assigned regional needs housing allocation.
Source: Biz Journals
