Base closure is California city's dream

CONCORD, Calif. -- When the Pentagon announced this month its latest list of proposed base closings, people in this San Francisco suburb, like so many others across the country, hoped for the best.

But while other communities nationwide fretted about the possible shutdown of their military installations, Concord civic leaders took a seemingly peculiar step: They lobbied the Pentagon to close the city's naval weapons station.

Concord wants the site because the facility occupies 13,000 acres of waterfront, marshland, and inland meadows that compose one of the largest remaining undeveloped properties in the heavily urbanized San Francisco Bay Area.

The Pentagon obliged, saying on May 13 that it would release 5,100 acres of prime real estate at the weapons station to the civilian sector as part of the Pentagon's latest round of base realignment and closure recommendations.

For now, the military will hold on to the facility's tidal basin, which despite its expanse provides fewer opportunities for development. The military will continue to operate piers, which now employ fewer than 100 people. A small flotilla of mothballed ships also will remain.

''Everybody wants to be taken off the list," Mayor Laura M. Hoffmeister said. ''We're not opposed to them taking even more. We were hoping that they'd put the whole thing on the list. It would certainly have been better, but we're willing to take anything."

Unlike other towns and cities across the country that have their future riding on an economic engine powered by the military, Concord -- 30 miles inland from San Francisco -- hopes to ride high on a likely real estate boom sparked by the military's partial withdrawal from the weapons base.

The city envisions 13,500 new homes, office buildings, and retail developments over the next 30 years on the property. The development is expected to add 33,000 residents to the city, more than a fourth of Concord's current population, and create about 15,000 jobs.

There is talk of building much-needed affordable housing in the region. The median price of a house in the Bay Area is about $580,000, a factor that has sent many home buyers farther inland.

''There is a need to find a place to house our workers and a place for new jobs," said Jim Forsberg, Concord's director of planning and economic development.

How the property will be developed is still undecided. City officials acknowledge that pressure will be mounting from many quarters, including from housing advocates, environmentalists, and the business community. ''We're still trying size things up," Forsberg said.

''Of course, the developers are all jumping up and down and saying, 'Wonderful, wonderful.' They're excited, to put it mildly," Forsberg said. ''But this is something for the entire community."

Once the list of closings is completed later this year, the Pentagon is expected to auction off the 5,100-acre property, Forsberg said. ''On the positive side, we think the Navy might be motivated to move very quickly," he said. No one is sure how much the property is worth, but it is certainly in the hundreds of millions, Forsberg said.

''We've been sitting here just looking at that property and watching weeds come up through the roads," said Hoffmeister, Concord's mayor.

Concord has little room to grow.

Last January, the City Council passed a resolution urging that the base be closed, saying that ''the continued underutilization of the Concord Naval Weapons Station will result in the further deterioration of this facility." Delaying the closing, the council said, would make redevelopment ''more expensive and difficult."

''The military's been out of here for a long time. They're not coming back," the mayor said. ''We have to move on, and now we can get on with it."

Concord is hardly an antimilitary town, said Nicholas Virgallito, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce.

''If it was a base like Travis, we wouldn't want it closed," Virgallito said, referring to Travis Air Force Base, about 20 miles northeast of Concord. The base employs 11,000 people, including 3,500 civilians, and is the only major military installation left in the San Francisco region. The base was spared in the current round of closing recommendations.

Contra Costa County, of which Concord is its largest city, has been exploring shutting down its airfield, a move the business community opposes, to make room for housing and other development.

''It now takes some of the pressure off," Virgallito said. ''We see this as sustaining the economic vitality of the city. We're happy; we're excited. The sky's the limit for Concord."

But others are wary, particularly environmentalists hoping to preserve the region's last remaining wildlife area.

''The 13,000 houses being proposed would make it the biggest sprawl proposal in the Bay Area," said David Reid, the East Bay field representative for the Greenbelt Alliance, based in San Francisco.

''We are concerned about protecting the thousands of acres of rolling hills and wetlands on the base. If Concord's plan is realized, there will be substantial damage done to the environment," Reid said.

The city says it plans to reserve half of the property for parks, recreation, and other open space.

''It's so early in the process that we're still waiting to see what specifically is being planned," said Lisa Anich, cofounder of Friends of Mount Diablo Creek, a community organization that formed a year ago because of concerns about the possible closing of the weapons station.

The creek, which flows 17 miles from its headwaters at Mount Diablo, through the base and into Suisun Bay, is one of the last remaining unobstructed waterways in the county. It hosts a number of endangered and threatened animals, Anich said.

''Since [the base] was put on a mothballed status, the Navy was actually a good land manager, at least environmentally. If it was still an active military base, then my opinion might be different," Anich said.

Dan Helix, a retired Army major general who served on the Concord City Council three decades ago and is a member of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's council on base support and retention, said: ''I think things are going to have to be very deliberate because we live in a very activist time. There will be a lot of groups wanting to provide input."

Helix said that he supports closing the weapons station, but that he did not support the military's decision in 1988 to close the Presidio in San Francisco, home base of the Sixth Army, of which Helix was the deputy commanding general until his retirement in 1989.

''Right now, the city is feeling this euphoria about the opportunities it has," Helix said. ''I think people understand how big of an opportunity this is. I think finally we have a chance to move ahead."