Brookfield and city hatch plan to redevelop Concord Naval Weapons Station

Brookfield Properties and the City of Concord have hammered out preliminary plans to redevelop the former Concord Naval Weapons Station with more than 12,000 homes.

The New York-based master developer has inked a term sheet with the city spelling out the long-anticipated development of 2,300 acres owned by the U.S. Navy into a transit-oriented village on the city’s northside, the East Bay Times reported.

Preliminary plans call for 6 million square feet of offices, shops and restaurants, 12,200 homes — 25 percent set aside as affordable housing — and commercial space, plus 880 acres of parks and greenbelts.

The $6 billion project, pending final approval, would be built in five phases over 40 years between the 2,600-acre Thurgood Marshall Regional Park and neighborhoods on the city’s northern border.

The agreement follows on the heels of two failed plans by other master developers going back 25 years that collapsed following labor disputes, power plays and allegations of backroom deals, according to the Business Journal.

After months of negotiations, Concord officials and the unit of Toronto-based Brookfield now feel they got it right.

This week, the Concord City Council, acting as the Local Reuse Authority, unanimously approved Brookfield’s term sheet, a non-binding document outlining potential future contracts between the authority and the developer.

The term sheet features a key labor agreement with Contra Costa County’s Construction and Building Trades Council and the Norcal Carpenters Union — a crucial requirement for the redevelopment project.

Brookfield also proposes picking up $146 million in construction costs for infrastructure supporting the project’s 3,000 affordable housing units, plus $50 million in added support.

The vote came less than two weeks before the March 30 expiration of an exclusive negotiating agreement with Brookfield signed in August, with an extension added this week.

Brookfield now has two years to negotiate a property transfer agreement with the Navy — twice the length of time officials initially anticipated. It also must put together a specific plan, prepare an environmental study and obtain legal clearances and permits.

Josh Roden, president of Brookfield’s Northern California land and housing division, said his staff are “confident that it won’t take that long.”

In the meantime, the Navy will clean up toxic chemicals that leached into the ground from weapons dating back to World War II. The Navy closed the inland part of the base in 1999. 

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The redevelopment project is expected to encompass half of the weapons station’s 5,050 acres, situated south of the still-operating Military Ocean Terminal Concord, on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The project’s first master developer, Lennar FivePoint, signed initial agreements in May 2016. But the city eventually pulled the plug on its partnership in March 2020 after the company couldn’t agree on labor agreements with local builders. 

After that fallout, the City Council tapped local developer Concord First Partners, partially owned by the controversial Seeno family. But trouble began on that proposal by May 2022, and Concord officials voted 3-2 to scrap the developer’s plans in January last year.

— Dana Bartholomew