The first of the two hotels that are part of the Johnson Drive Economic Development Zone project is scheduled to open in Pleasanton next month.

SpringHill Suites, owned by Marriott International, is a 122-room hotel that will be located at 7270 Johnson Drive. According to its website, which is now up and running for people to book rooms, the hotel is set to open to the public on Dec. 20.

The hotel is just one piece of the larger JDEDZ project that aims to redevelop approximately 40 acres of land fronting Johnson Drive -- near Stoneridge Drive and Interstate 680 -- into a commercial corridor including the wholesale retail giant Costco and the two hotels.

The second 110-room hotel, TownePlace Suites -- which will be located at 7260 Johnson Drive, also owned by Marriott -- is set to open in February, but the city does not know what day specifically it will open, according to Heather Tiernan, communications manager for the city.

"With the addition of two new hotels in Pleasanton, Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenues are expected to increase," Tiernan told the Weekly. "In addition to TOT revenues, the city will benefit from additional funding from the assessments collected as part of the Tri-Valley Tourism Marketing District (TMD)."

"The majority of the TMD funds Visit Tri-Valley, the region's destination marketing organization, which is charged with marketing the Tri-Valley and its member cities to increase hotel room nights and promote local shopping, dining, and recreation," she added.

As for the new Costco that will be constructed as part of the JDEDZ project, assistant city manager Pamela Ott confirmed that the city issued the building permit on Oct. 20 and that construction work has "already started to get the site stabilized before the winter rains."

"The current tentative schedule is that the Costco store will be completed by fall 2024; this is dependent on the weather over the winter months," Ott said.

Other street improvements in the JDEDZ project include making the Stoneridge Drive and I-680 northbound onramp wider in order to create a second lane, making Johnson Drive wider to create a second northbound lane and traffic signalization improvements on Owens and Commerce drives.

According to Tiernan, that widening of the I-680 ramp has been the most notable roadway improvement of late. Construction workers began pouring the cement of the new bridge deck in mid-October, she added.

"The I-680 onramp bridge has been poured and the bank restoration has been completed; work will continue on the bridge deck and approach roadway throughout the winter," Ott said. "Roadway improvements along Johnson Drive will be moving forward in early spring following utility relocation work by PG&E that is scheduled to start in December, toward estimated completion in summer 2024."

As part of its approval of the JDEDZ project, the city agreed to reimburse a portion of the design and construction costs with traffic impact fees to be imposed on future JDEDZ developers and a portion of the sales tax revenues generated by the new Costco store, with Costco fronting a portion of the overall roadwork costs in addition to its own share.

Then in July 2022, the Pleasanton City Council voted to move forward with allowing the construction of the infrastructure improvements, which estimated a total cost of about $33.5 million -- an increase from the initial $21.47 million in 2017 -- and acquiring the right-of-way needed to construct the traffic mitigation measures.

Costco, now a landowner within the project area, had been vying to construct the new store for nearly a decade but the city's JDEDZ project faced a lengthy public process that included an opposition measure that lost at the ballot box, two lawsuits and years worth of city review and council hearings.

The two hotels were the first building projects approved for construction in the JDEDZ.