The Pleasanton City Council Tuesday approved the construction of a multimillion-dollar, Asian-focused retail and office center in Staples Ranch that will serve as a designated gateway to the city’s northeast side.
The center, to be called Pacific Pearl, will rival in size and scope the Pleasanton Gateway Center built two years ago across from the Alameda County Fairgrounds at Bernal and Valley avenues, which is anchored by a Safeway Lifestyle supermarket.
Bradley Blake, representing developer BHV CenterStreet Properties of Danville, told the council that Pacific Pearl will be anchored by Marina Food, a supermarket with an international food court and a large variety of products. The spacious shopping center also will feature a variety of restaurants, retail stores and service businesses. Although Pacific Pearl will cater to a many-faceted clientele and taste, its focus will be Asian.
Besides Marina Food and its food court, Blake said roughly a third to half of the center’s tenants will be restaurants, including one at 60,000 square feet that will serve as a banquet facility as well. Its operator, who has not been named, operates Chinese restaurants in other parts of the Bay Area and is associated with similar restaurants in China.
“But even with the Asian focus, you’ll still be able to order a pizza at Pacific Pearl,” Blake told Councilwoman Kathy Narum.
The 112,000-square-foot shopping center will be built on a 11.5-acre site reserved for a retail development at the time the council approved the Staples Ranch Specific Plan in 2009 and later annexed the 124-acre county-owned site.
Pacific Pearl will face onto Stoneridge Drive at El Charro Road, just south of the San Francisco (formerly Livermore) Premium Outlets center. A large monument sign will welcome motorists to Pleasanton. A similar sign is being made to face motorists exiting I-680 at Bernal Avenue.
The center and its design of brick and stucco was approved earlier by the Pleasanton Planning Commission. It will include five separate buildings for office and retail use. To maintain diversity, the commission added a restriction to its approval restricting the number of medical offices that would be allowed in the center and also limiting the size of any barbershops or beauty parlors to no more than 5,000 square feet.
Traffic signals will be installed at the main entrance to Pacific Pearl on Stoneridge Drive, with two lanes leading into the center and three leading out. Mike Tassano, the city’s traffic engineer, said preliminary projections show about 60% of those coming into the center will be from Pleasanton with 40% from Livermore and off the I-580 freeway.
Access to Pacific Pearl will allow entry on two lanes off Stoneridge Drive into the center with three lanes for leaving the center, also onto Stoneridge. There will be no driveways off El Charro, except for a gated emergency road.
City Manager Nelson Fialho estimated that the city should receive $280,000 a year in tax revenue from Pacific Pearl. Pleasanton Gateway near the Fairgrounds generates $285,000 a year, he said. The two shopping centers are roughly the same size, totaling 112,000 square feet at the new Pacific Pearl and 125,351 square feet at the now-completed and occupied Pleasanton Gateway center.
Council members praised the project. Narum said her mother, a resident at the nearby Stoneridge Creek retirement community, looks forward to being able to go over to Pacific Pearl’s grocery store for milk without having to drive on the freeway.
Councilwoman Karla Brown said the center will bring about 300 new jobs to Pleasanton.
“This is a win-win project for everybody and I support it,” she said.
Construction is expected to start later this year with the center’s opening projected for 2017.
