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The iconic Barone’s Restaurant in downtown Pleasanton will soon be gone for good after the City Council unanimously approved the design plans to redevelop the area into new housing and commercial space during its Jan. 9 meeting.
The project — which aims to build 14 new detached homes, two new commercial buildings with a plaza and parking — was considered a positive addition to the downtown community by the entire council and a majority of the public who look forward to its potential to bring new families to the city as well as new businesses.
“There’s certainly a significant amount of opportunity for our downtown to see some significant investment, which we haven’t seen in a while,” City Manager Gerry Beaudin said during the meeting.
After nearly 30 years, the Barone’s Restaurant first shuttered its doors in December 2022 due to various reasons, including the coronavirus pandemic. It shortly reopened in August 2023 as a pared down concept with appetizers, finger foods, cocktails and entertainment three nights a week, as well as private event rentals, before shutting down for good.
The Barone family, who own the land, originally announced their intent to shut down early in 2021.
Since the restaurant’s closure, the project applicant — San Jose-based Robson Homes LLC — had been working with staff to come up with a design for the space that not only kept the Barone family’s home but also served as an amenity to the downtown’s economic vitality.
After coming up with an appropriate design and outlining how the commercial spaces are to be used, the Planning Commission approved the design plans and documents on Oct. 23, 2024.
The redevelopment plans for the former restaurant include retaining and expanding the existing two-story, single-family home and demolishing all other structures in order to create a mixed-use development.
The new development across the 2.3-acre project site at 475 and 493 St. John Street would consist of 14 new detached two-and-a-half-story, single-family homes; two single-story retail or commercial buildings with a plaza and a 13-stall parking lot. The two commercial buildings would total approximately 3,125 square feet in area combined and the plaza would be about 1,568 square feet.
According to Planning and Permit Center Manager Melinda Denis, the new homes will be located behind the commercial structures and the Barone’s family home and there will be no net loss of commercial square footage.
“The site plan and project, as proposed, provides adequate transition from commercial to residential,” Denis said during the Jan. 9 meeting.
Denis also said there will be a single primary access point from St. John street, there will be adequate internal vehicle and pedestrian circulation and there will be no development taking place within the designated open space areas along the Arroyo Valle.
“This project will uphold Pleasanton’s reputation as a wonderful place to live, raise a family, work and play,” Robson Homes project manager Richard Yee told the dais.
“We’ve created a well designed, mixed-use project that will activate St. John’s commercial connection to the downtown and provide new housing that will support downtown business.”
The dais was originally slated to vote on the item on Dec. 17 but it was continued after several additional questions were raised.
Those concerns have since been addressed in a Jan. 2 memorandum from Beaudin and community development director Ellen Clark.
In the memorandum, several topics are addressed but one of the main issues that also came up during the meeting was tree removal and preservation, which had been raised as a concern in a recent online petition.
According to a Change.org petition that was created on Oct. 24 — the day after the Planning Commission approved the project — over a thousand residents called for the city to reconsider the removal of 34 heritage-size trees from the property.
The overall plan consists of removing 39 trees in total out of the 51 that are on the property due to “direct or significant encroachment by the proposed project.”
A handful of people who live near the Barone’s property voiced their concerns about the project’s plans to remove trees during last week’s meeting.
After a lengthy discussion with the city’s Landscape Architect Matt Gruber, Councilmember Julie Testa told the group who were advocating to save the trees that while she hates the idea of taking down trees at all, she hopes people will take comfort in knowing that not all the trees will be cut down at the site.
“It breaks my heart to take out any trees and to take out this many, absolutely breaks my heart,” Testa said. “I don’t feel that replanting elsewhere mitigates taking out a tree, it feels very personal to me also.”
Pleasanton resident Nadine Moore is one of the residents who lives in the St. John neighborhood who spoke up during the meeting.
She started off by saying that she was not opposed to the redevelopment plans, but that she was opposed to cutting down heritage trees — specifically the large Valley Oak tree on the west side property line of 493 Saint John St.
“To cut down a heritage tree, is to cut down a silent sentinel of our social memory and to remove the roots of our community’s history,” Moore said.
However, staff clarified that they did not use the term heritage trees — which are protected — in their report to the council. Instead, the report stated that the plan is to remove 34 “heritage-size trees.”
Staff also has noted that “amendments to the Tree Preservation Ordinance are underway, which would classify many of these trees as ‘protected trees’ — however, the term heritage tree is used in this report, since the tree evaluation and arborist report were completed pursuant to the existing ordinance and its definitions.”
Yee said they did reach out to the city’s arborist about moving the large oak tree and that if they could, the developers would have moved it.
Gruber said as someone who cares a lot about trees, he made sure to really look at the viability of keeping as many trees on the property as possible. However, he said keeping all of the trees and developing housing was just not possible.
Gruber did note that one positive spin is that the developer is paying $150,000 to the city’s forestry fund, which in turn will fund the planting of a lot of smaller to medium-sized trees throughout the city.
Some other criticism that came out of the Jan. 9 meeting was from Councilmember Craig Eicher who said that while he believes the project was well thought out, he would have wanted to see higher density. Testa also pointed out that the homes will not be affordable due to the developer paying a $1.2 million in-lieu fee in order to avoid building affordable housing.
The council also wanted to make sure that the commercial buildings are occupied within the first six months after the project is complete, which is one of the reasons why staff made sure the commercial building permits a variety of businesses including restaurants, retail and breweries.
Initially, offices were not going to be permitted in the buildings; however, after some discussion the council decided to amend the staff recommendation to allow for office use if the commercial space is not occupied within those first six months.
“I just want to make sure that we are revitalizing our downtown with patrons,” Mayor Jack Balch said.
It’s a hard pill to swallow when we find out our city leaders value money over the citizen’s health and happiness.
No, the majority us public at the meeting spoke for the trees. Also, these trees include the gorgeous 11 Redwoods next to the Rose Hotel parking lot (across Ray Street) The trees are the beauty and Heritage of Pleasanton. Greed has shown its ugly face in this new administration.
Also, the photo is not the Valley Oak, that is a different tree, a Black Walnut.
“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money“ – Cree