City Revises Schedule for Intermodal Station; Construction To Begin April 2011
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 26 August 2010 — 4 comments below »
The City has published a questions answered memo with respect to the apparent delay in the construction of the Intermodal Station (with the environmental documents currently a principal sticking point). The memo includes an updated schedule with construction beginning no sooner than April 2011, assuming no unanticipated delays of course. With the expected 30 months of construction, that pushes the planned opening to early 2014.
One thing however. This may be an oversight, or partly Freudian, but the exhaustive list of strategic partners the City provided fails to include the developer/landowner (AndersonPacific), with whom a transfer of property is still requisite for, uhm, the construction of the Intermodal Station to commence.1 In fact, the memo does not mention the developer or the necessary transfer of property (which clearly remains a hurdle).
It is not clear whether or not this indicates a deteriorated, if not unsalvageable, relationship with the developer, or if this also suggests that the rumor the City plans to seek an eminent domain takeover of the property has merit.
- The list of “strong partnering relationships” includes: Caltrans, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Contra Costa Transportation Authority, Regional Water Quality Control Board, Water Emergency Transportation Authority, bicycle groups, 511 Contra Costa.↩
I also noticed the obvious lack of any reference to Anderson Pacific.
Very strange indeed, and I think intentional.
The question is why the city would fail to mention AP.
Not a good sign for the developer to be intentionally snubbed.
If the property for the station is owned by the developer and they are not listed as partners in the process, this is of concern. At the same time, other projects seem to be moving forward at a much faster rate.
Jesse Harder and Lisa Hammon continue to plan for a train station in the middle of a field with no regard for the impact of their decisions on the surrounding construction. This has resulted in nearly complete breakdown in cooperation between the city and Anderson-Pacific. Ms. Hammon, the city’s project manager for the Waterfront, will not even stand on the same stage with the developer in public, presumably because the city needs to avoid public observation of its unscrupulous actions. I judge that every minute and dollar being invested in the current train station plan without the cooperation of the developer is wasted, because in the end the city will not have the power to implement their disruptive decisions. In fact, it seems likely to me that any judge would grant an injunction against the construction of any train station that prohibited the construction of the downtown in conformity to the Waterfront Initiative, which promises to waste more years and millions of dollars in promised financing that will have to be returned. This strikes me, unbelievably, as yet one more chapter in the incompetence and intransigence of the city of Hercules that has now delayed this project for a good part of a decade, and continually against the loud and consistent wishes of the public.
It is greatly to the credit of the developer that he maintains the vision of New Urbanism for this project. Any one with lesser vision would have bailed out on this city years ago and just built a thousand stucco-and-red-tile-roof houses and condominiums and walked away.
Well said Jeff. I would like to see Anderson-Pacific give a position report at an upcoming Council meeting. We all need more clarity on this issue and the city report seems incomplete or deceptive.