Pinole may be throwing away an opportunity to do something great. Although Hercules has (wisely) informed them of their intent to send waste to WCWD (West County Wastewater District) in Richmond, Pinole still holds hope that Hercules will join them in their efforts to upgrade the existing facility (Option 1 in the recently-released Draft EIR, which assumes continued joint operation of the facility between Pinole and Hercules, the most short-sighted alternative), and will likely upgrade the facility regardless of Hercules’ decision.

Below is an image of the current facility seen from above (note the adjacent storage yard which is used for trailer parking)…

When I had mentioned the potential for re-use during the EIR scoping meeting in October, Pinole’s City Engineer scoffed that he would love to have the entire site be a park but that is not realistic (paraphrased). Unfortunately, he missed my point completely. Never mind a park; consider the value of a mixed-use creekfront village.

If the City of Pinole were to purchase the storage yard, which they have attempted to do at least once since 2008 (although the City’s intended use of the site is unknown; it could have been used to expand the wastewater treatment facility instead), look at the area that Pinole would have for redevelopment/re-use (shown in orange below)…

The creekfront village would be within walking distance to downtown Pinole, the redeveloped Hercules Waterfront (a New Urbanism, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood), and Amtrak Capitol Corridor, not to mention the future ferry to San Francisco. And it would come with a view and a historic house as a neighbor. (Imagine the number of units that could be built in that block, which would be on top of any units constructed on the site of the existing wastewater treatment facility itself. The project would pay for itself.) Except that Pinole’s plan whether or not Hercules leaves is to upgrade the facility, making any efforts to revitalize the area difficult at best.

Pinole could do itself a favor and join Hercules in a switch to WCWD (admittedly the costliest alternative upfront), and then combine forces in a joint redevelopment agency project to decommission the existing facility and develop the site as a mixed-use village in a very desirable location.

Note: An earlier version of this post erroneously referred to the trailer storage yard as the City of Pinole’s Corporation Yard.