Main Street project faces $2 million funding gap

Pleasanton Express
By Pleasanton Express Staff 
DANIEL ELIZONDO-MANAGING EDITOR
May 17, 2023

The City of Pleasanton’s Main Street Project is facing a $2 million funding gap, announced by DreamOn, the firm that is developing the project to help revitalize the area.

DreamOn Group founder Julissa Carielo, announced the funding gap to city council members during a presentation of Phase 1 of the project as a part of the city council meeting held on Thursday.

“Our goal here is really to first establish – how do we make sure that this is a project that is self sustaining?” Carielo said. “It has to produce the rents to be able to produce the mortgage payments and all that stuff. I would like to say our design team and our construction team have been working over and over with how to produce this to increase the numbers and reduce the gap as much as we can.”

The Main Street Project, first presented in 2021, is slated to begin with Phase 1, which is the area of the former elementary school building along Main Street across from Lyons Street. Pleasanton City Council gave approval on a concept in January for the major project that would tie in Main Street and the city’s River Park with mixed use, retail, office space and multi-family living.

The Main Street enhancement project will begin with Phase 1 concentrating on the old elementary school buildings.
ARTIST RENDITION | COURTESY DREAMON

Project director of Stantec Architecture Eduardo Garcia told councilmembers that some components to this project would require the demolition of a portion of the school building and then renovate the front half to repurpose it for ordinary retail, office, restaurant, food, beverage, etc.

“So there’s a number of different uses that are capable in this space,” he said. “What’s interesting is that we’re adding a second floor on the back half of it to help us create an outdoor area. The magic of this plan is really about public space and getting people to hang out here and enjoy the place itself.”

The city has received $2.5 million in grants from United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Economic Development Administration (EDA).

A part of the grant money comes from Congressman Henry Cuellar, who presented a $1 million EDA grant for the Business Center and a $70,000 USDA Rural Development Grant for a Business Incubator within the renovated space.

“We’re talking about doing a 5,000 squarefoot Business Innovation Center,” Carielo said. “It would be a collaboration for business and also a meeting space. That is something that we’re also talking to Workforce Solutions about because they’re wanting to have a training space for training as well for any type of apprenticeship programs that can happen out of here as well.”

Carielo said the way to improve the funding gap comes from different variables. One is the interest rate, which she said the higher the interest rate, the higher the gap. The other thing is the construction costs and to find ways to offset some of that or find some incentives to reduce those costs.

“This is the first time we’re bringing what we consider is a tourist attraction that’s going to be open for the community and others to come and visit,” she said. “We are establishing the vision of this new corridor that we call the Historical Main Street and we’re looking for ways to activate it more than just saying let’s renovate the building.”

The plan in Phase 1 calls for the renovation of the old existing school building while also adding to the existing property in the back of it to include a second story.

“That is why there’s so much extra cost to begin with, because we need to bring in infrastructure to make this happen,” Carielo said. “I’m really excited about this because I know all the work that we’ve been doing is going to help tell the story of what’s coming.”

Although DreamOn will only be concentrating on Phase 1, the firm also has plans to possibly renovate the old gymnasium into a music hall and another adjacent building into a microbrewery, all located behind the old elementary building.

“The reason we focus on a smaller bite size approach is because we need to test the market first,” Carielo said. “We know once we’re able to fill this area, then it becomes a lot easier to do the rest of the areas.”

Council approved of the final rendering of Phase 1 and voted unanimously to issue requests for proposals for design services of Phase 1. The city may back out of the project if funding does not meet approval.