Planners to meet Wednesday on new Civic Center project Planners to meet Wednesday on new Civic Center project (May 21, 2004)

$30 million complex would replace current center, temporary buildings
by Jeb Bing

Plans for a new $30 million Civic Center downtown that would consolidate municipal offices and be built on the same downtown site will be heard by the Pleasanton Planning Commission at its 7 p.m. meeting Wednesday in the current Civic Center, 200 Old Bernal Ave.

Billed as a workshop, the Civic Center discussion will be informal with no action expected by planners.

Downtown business leaders have long complained through the Pleasanton Downtown Association that the temporary buildings on the current site are an eyesore. They have claimed that the structures fail to meet building standards and that the city would not allow others to build or use them in the central business district.

Steven Bocian, assistant city manager, told the PDA that the proposed new center would likely replace the two temporary structures as well as the recently renovated current Civic Center building at 200 Old Bernal Ave. Also slated for removal is the old main post office building at 157 Main St., which the city now owns and uses.

The police station, which was recently expanded, and the public library would not be affected by the project. A proposed parking garage on the site, however, could serve library patrons if the library is expanded into its own parking lot, which is part of the proposal.

In a presentation to the PDA, Bocian showed several concepts for a new Civic Center. All would keep the Civic Center downtown, a plan favored by both City Manager Deborah McKeehan and the PDA. At one time, officials had talked of relocating City Hall to another site at Sunol Boulevard and I-680, which Applied Biosystems has since purchased and constructed the first of seven buildings planned for the property.

While the new Civic Center would stay on the current site, both its location and the long-range plans for tearing down the older buildings are uncertain. One plan calls for a half-circle-shaped building with access off Main Street while another shows an L-shaped Civic Center with vehicle access only through a circular drive behind the building that also leads to a multi-story parking garage. PDA members at the presentation said they favor pedestrian access to the Civic Center from Main Street, but prefer that motorists be required to use Old Bernal Avenue to reach Civic Center parking spaces.

As part of the construction project, the Civic Center site would be landscaped with trees, plants and lawns to make it, along with Civic Park across Main Street, a more attractive gateway to the downtown district from Bernal, where a traffic light would be installed.

The Civic Center project has been discussed for years, but only recently has the plan moved forward on the City Council's list of priorities. Hopes by officials to expedite planning were dashed last year, however, when the council took $6 million in startup funds for the project and reallocated them to renovate the Railroad Avenue fire station as an art center when a new firehouse is built on Bernal Avenue later this year.

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