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With its building permits under review by the city, Costco is getting ready to break ground on constructing its first-ever store in Pleasanton within the next couple of months. However, due to delays with associated street improvements in the area, shoppers will have to wait more into next year to see the store officially open.
Located southeast of the Interstate 580 and Interstate 680 interchange, the highly anticipated Costco is one of the anchors of the larger Johnson Drive Economic Development Zone project that aims to redevelop approximately 40 acres of land fronting Johnson Drive — near Stoneridge Drive and I-680 — into a commercial corridor including the wholesale retail giant and two new hotels.
Pamela Ott, deputy city manager, confirmed to the Weekly that the 122-room SpringHill Suites at 7270 Johnson Drive and the 110-room TownePlace Suites at 7260 Johnson Drive are nearing completion to become the first new additions to the JDEDZ area later this year.
“The City of Pleasanton is delighted with the revitalization of long-vacant properties in the Johnson Drive area, the nearing completion of the SpringHill Suites and TownePlace Suites hotels and the future Costco,” Mayor Karla Brown told the Weekly in a statement. “All these projects will bring significant additional revenues to the city in the form of increased sales tax and hotel tax, supporting a balanced budget and funding critical services plus facilities for Pleasanton’s residents.”
Ott added that the SpringHill Suites is slated to open first with an employee training anticipated in September followed by TownePlace Suites, which anticipates its employee training in December.
“When the hotels are ready to welcome guests, they can fully open to the public,” Ott said.
But on top of the new amenities, the JDEDZ project also includes mandated street improvements to reduce the impact of traffic from the new land-uses. Key roadwork needs to be completed before Costco breaks ground on its building.
“The updated master schedule for completing the construction of the JDEDZ street improvements indicates all work to be completed by late March 2024,” Ott said. “This is four months later than the original master schedule, which had the work complete by November 2023, as there is joint trench relocation work that is now expected to start July 2023 barring any additional delay.”
According to Ott, the joint trench relocation work entails having a contractor install new electrical and telecommunication conduits and junction enclosures to replace aging infrastructure. The city’s street light electrical and traffic signals will also be replaced.
“Although an important component of the roadwork, the joint trench represents only a small component of the overall project,” Ott said. “Following the joint trench installation, the contractor will widen a portion of the road to include new pavement, sidewalks, streetlights, traffic signals and landscaping.”
Other street improvements in the JDEDZ project include making the Stoneridge Drive and I-680 northbound on-ramp 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.
Ott added that while the joint trench work will be needed to make power and gas connections, once done the two hotels will be allowed to open for guests in advance of the other transportation improvements during the fall and winter months.
However, she said that the Costco store and gas station cannot open to the public until the transportation improvements are complete.
“Costco has indicated that construction of its retail building and fueling facility has been scheduled to coincide with the completion of the onsite traffic improvements on Johnson Drive,” Ott said.
She also said that while the city expects to issue Costco its building permit this summer, the company’s building permit application is still under review while the city waits for an update to the plans.
“Costco has indicated the onsite construction will require approximately 7-8 months, such that construction would begin by late July/early August 2023,” Ott said in a statement. “The building will be approximately 160,000 square feet, which is similar in size to most of its stores, with 768 parking stalls and 15 double-sided fuel pumps.”
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 property, 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, 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 Weekly attempted to seek comment from Costco, but according to a representative, it is company policy “to not comment regarding future Costco warehouses and their construction until we are ready to share details about the new location — usually 2-3 months in advance of its opening.”
