---

On Saturday August 26th, the Concord City Council on Saturday unanimously selected Brookfield Properties as the new Master Developer for the Concord reuse project at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station.

About 2,300 acres could be turned into about 12,000 units of housing and millions of square feet of commercial space, along with greenways, parks, schools, and other types of development.

About 800 acres of parks and greenways—bigger than Golden Gate Park—are planned.

The Master Developer will come up with an overall plan to develop more than 2,000 acres of land on the west side of the city.

The plan will cover infrastructure like water, sewer, roads, etc., as well as how to manage developers that will build vertical pieces of the project.

The next steps for the project include outlining the terms of an exclusive negotiating agreement, drafting a specific plan, and a term sheet.

The term sheet is a document that establishes procedures and standards for the negotiation of the development agreement.

More than half of the more than 5,000 acres the Navy used to own here have already been turned into the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park.

That’s partly thanks to years of work by Save Mount Diablo and our partners that took place in the early 2000s.

We advocated that 69 percent of the acreage of the former base be turned into different kinds of parks and green space. It’ll take a little while, but planning for the new regional park and how to open it to the public is underway.

This is the chance to deliver a world-class project at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station.

We need a project that buffers communities from construction impacts, takes advantage of mass transit, and provides quality affordable housing.

We need a project that serves as a model for the latest green-building and sustainable development principles, and benefits the city and Contra Costa County far more than it negatively impacts them.

We’ll keep you updated as new plans come out.