Downtown corridor could cost $10 million Downtown corridor could cost $10 million (September 23, 2005)

Proceeds could build new ACE station, parking garage
by Jeb Bing

County Supervisor Scott Haggerty said this week that the county might agree to sell the so-called transportation corridor that slices through downtown Pleasanton, but at a price estimated at $10 million which he could use to build a new parking garage and ACE train station at the county Fairgrounds.

Speaking to members of the Downtown Vitality Committee, a unit of the Pleasanton Downtown Association, Haggerty said the vacant strip of land long ago lost its value as a corridor for trains or trolleys. At one time, it ran uninterrupted from Martinez to Fremont, but cities, including Pleasanton, "have encroached on it."

"As we know in government, if we don't make use of infrastructure like this quickly before homes and businesses move in, we're out of luck," Haggerty said.

Although Alameda County, which owns the corridor, has worked deals with other cities to use the land, the county has been at an impasse with Pleasanton since the city worked with a developer consortium to buy the 510-acre Bernal property from the city of San Francisco for $126 million. The property was owned by the San Francisco Public Utility Agency, which still holds the rights to the water beneath the land, but it was in unincorporated Alameda County.

After the sale, the ACE station was supposed to be moved to the Bernal property, he said.

Haggerty said he worked with the county board to allow Pleasanton to annex the property, with the understanding that the city would move the ACE train station off the Fairgrounds parking lot from its train-side location on Pleasanton Avenue. He said that since then, the city has reneged on that "handshake" agreement.

"You know in business if you have a chip to play, you hang onto it until the time comes to uses it," Haggerty told the PDA. "Turning this corridor over to Pleasanton is now my chip."

He said the agreement to move the train station off the Fairgrounds parking lot, which he had approved as a temporary location, was made in a meeting he had with former Pleasanton Mayor Ben Tarver and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

"There's no one around any more who was here at the time," Haggerty said. "Pleasanton has a new City Council, a new mayor, a new city manager, even a new Public Works director."

He said earlier that he would never do a "handshake" agreement again with Pleasanton officials.

Haggerty said he has been negotiating with City Manager Nelson Fialho on the sale of the transportation corridor, and said the talks are going well.

Since the corridor was purchased years ago with road funds by his predecessor from the 1st District, the late Ed Campbell, Haggerty would have to keep any proceeds from the sale of the land for transportation uses. He wants to use the $10 million the county is asking for the Pleasanton portion of the corridor to build a two-story parking garage that both the Fairgrounds and downtown merchants could use. The structure would include an all-weather train station, replacing the small shelter that now serves ACE train commuters.

"Every other city on the line has built a permanent train station for commuters, and it's time for Pleasanton to do the same," Haggerty said.

Pleasanton officials haven't budgeted funds to buy the corridor, although it's high on their priority list. They need it to complete their Firehouse Theater and Art Gallery project proposed for the abandoned firehouse on Railroad Avenue.

At a recent City Council meeting, Jerry Iserson, City Planning Director, said the corridor extends from Old Stanley Boulevard on the north to Bernal Avenue on the south and then behind the Senior Center and on into Sunol.

"We would want to use only a part of it for parking to meet our off-street parking needs today, and those we project in the future as downtown buildings and businesses are expanded, gaining about 250-270 new parking spaces," he said.

But downtown property owner and developer Bob Byrd said cars already park on the corridor even though the city doesn't own it.

"Most of the corridor is already being used, so we would not gain 250 more spaces, probably only 70 at most."

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