Jamestown ponders converting Concord office complex to homes or labs

Jamestown Properties may convert a vacant 300,000-square-foot office building in Concord to research labs or homes, but would prefer to find an office tenant.

The Atlanta-based real estate investor is weighing its options for the nine-story building leased to Bank of America at 2000 Clayton Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The bank’s lease ends in June.

Concord officials say they’ve had inquiries from Jamestown about redeveloping the building at 2000 Clayton, as well as its offices at 2001 Clayton, home to Wells Fargo Bank and Swinerton.

A Jamestown spokesperson told the Business Times the company is “actively leasing both buildings” and just signed a 16,000-square-foot lease at 2001 Clayton. 

As for the former B-of-A building, the spokesperson said: “As part of our ongoing management of the property, we regularly explore a range of development options.”

The building is part of a 15-acre, four-building campus across the street from the Concord BART station that Bank of America built in the mid-1980s to house the bank’s West Coast data center and offices. The campus once drew as many as 2,500 workers.

Bank of America sold the campus in 2011 and leased back parts of it. Jamestown bought the two buildings in 2018 for an undisclosed sum.

Divya Sapa, Jamestown’s vice president of development and construction, said that 2000 Clayton presents a unique opportunity.

“We don’t have just one single tenant in our other buildings,” Sapa told the Business Times. “It’s a vacant building, we are definitely looking at repositioning. But it’s best if we can find an office tenant.”

Concord Principal Planner Frank Abajo said converting 2000 Clayton into housing would depend on the scope of the project and whether it includes affordable housing. “There are state laws that require a streamlined review by the city if it meets certain requirements on affordability,” he said.

If the project doesn’t qualify for streamlined review, then a conversion to housing would require a use permit — which can take between four and six months if the project can be exempt from an environmental review, which could add another two to six months.

Converting the office building to labs would depend on the “actual types of uses or businesses targeted,” according to Abajo. 

The property is zoned as Downtown Mixed Use, which allows for “laboratory, research and development,” but other uses, such as medical, would also require a use permit. 

— Dana Bartholomew