Feb 15, 2023Fresh off its 150th anniversary last year, San Leandro is at the cusp of a new vision for its downtown — one thats more walkable, vibrant, and what city planners hope will become a destination.
But overall, the prospect of a successful new downtown and the investment growth generated by that look robust. The contemporary-designed five-story complex being built by Oakland-based The Martin Group and San Francisco-based Sansome Pacific Properties will feature 196 apartments, including affordable units, atop a market and other shops.
Directly opposite Centro Callan is the site of another linchpin project for downtown – the Town Hall Square apartment proposal from Oakland-based Beam Development LLC. Another major infill project is 899 Alvarado, an entitled all-market-rate residential development by San Francisco-based Maximus.The project has been approved and is in the building permit approval stage.
That planning document identifies downtown as an optimal location for new mixed-use, near-transit projects that accentuate the area’s “role as the shopping district of the city while introducing higher densities and emphasizing a pedestrian orientation,” it says. “RHNA requirements have certainly pushed cities to identify more opportunity sites for housing,” Kass said, “and in some cases, those opportunity sites are near transit and downtowns particularly because there is often a lot of surface parking in these areas.”