New State Law Enables 600-Home Development on Alameda

A new state law will allow a unit of Tim Lewis Communities to build nearly 600 homes near the waterfront in Alameda.

Legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom has paved the way for North Waterfront Cove, a unit of the Roseville-based developer, to begin construction at the 32-acre Encinal Terminals at 1521 Buena Vista Avenue, the Alameda Sun reported.

The project aims to turn the blighted industrial site along the Oakland Estuary into a mixed-use development with 589 new homes, 80 of them affordable.

Plans also call for more than 4 acres of waterfront parks, a marina with up to 160 berths, the completion of the Bay Trail, and an unspecified number of shops and restaurants.

Encinal Terminals, on the north side of the East Bay island city, was carved out of marshland in the 1920s and was one of the first places to use shipping containers.

The potential development site has sat for a decade because of a 6.4-acre triangle in the middle of the terminal designated as “tidelands” for strictly maritime use. The city owned the land in trust from the state.

The new law allows a land exchange agreed upon by the State Land Commission and North Waterfront Cove, which owns the surrounding 26 acres.

Under the deal, North Waterfront will get the tidelands triangle to build homes, and the city will get the waterfront to build parks.

The Tim Lewis Communities subsidiary would also pay for sea level-rise protection and an environmental cleanup, plus infrastructure across the Encinal Terminals.

Under revised approvals for the housing project passed by the city in January last year, North Cove has 15 years to build the homes.

— Dana Bartholomew