True Life Plans to Raze Building in Pleasanton for 66 Homes

The True Life Companies aims to bulldoze a vacant commercial building in Pleasanton and replace it with 66 homes.

The Denver-based developer has filed preliminary plans to demolish the 22,000-square-foot building and construct 59 apartments and seven granny flats at 4400 Black Avenue, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The 2.6-acre site is owned by The Quarry Lane School next door, according to property records. It bought the building, then leased by AT&T, in 2020 for $5.3 million.

City documents describe the private school as interested in converting the property into residential use.

Preliminary plans call for 59 multifamily units and seven accessory dwelling units, which would include nine affordable units for low- and very low-income households.

True Life has submitted the project under Senate Bill 330, which limits the number of public hearings on the project to five.

The firm told the Business Times in an email it wasn’t working with The Quarry Lane School on the project “at this time.” It wasn’t clear whether True Life might already have bought the Black Avenue site.

The transformation of the building into homes was included in the city’s state-mandated housing element, or blueprint for accommodating 6,000 more homes by 2031.

Residents say that, in lieu of building more housing in existing neighborhoods, they support converting underused commercial properties like the Black Avenue building into homes, according to surveys.

The city recently approved rezoning the struggling Stoneridge Mall to allow multifamily housing, with at least one apartment project underway.

True Life has a second project in Pleasanton that also fits the same niche: a 146-unit apartment complex to replace a 110,000-square-foot office plaza at Hacienda Business Park.

Across the Bay in San Jose, True Life has filed plans to replace a 67-year-old swim and tennis club with 85 homes.

In February, the developer filed plans to replace a commercial building in Milpitas with 57 townhomes.

— Dana Bartholomew