OCTOBER 1, 2005
Mountain House Business Park takes shape
Travelers creeping down I-580 will soon have another exit – and a host of reasons to get off the freeway.
Bulldozers and cranes are hard at work on the Mountain House freeway overpass, forging a crucial first link in bringing jobs, consumer services, and other amenities to California’s newest hometown.
“Mountain House Business Park is the fulfillment of a commitment that was made to the community,” said Michael Clevenger, president of Pleasanton’s Pegasus Development, which owns the 170-acre Mountain House Business Park. “We are bringing in the jobs that will help satisfy the jobs-housing balance in the original environmental impact statement. We are providing services to residents so they won’t have to leave to find gas, groceries, pharmacies, restaurants and health care. And we are creating a distinctive gateway to the whole Mountain House community.”
Clevenger’s vision of the Mountain House Business Park began with the realization that ever-increasing land prices in the Bay Area were making it impossible to develop the kind of high-quality business environments that he wanted to create. At the same time, the upward spiral of the real estate market was forcing more and more of the area’s talented workforce to commute over the Altamont Pass from the Central Valley. Determined to use his 20 years of experience in land development to serve the needs of both business and the community, Clevenger purchased 170 acres of land at the gateway to Mountain House and set out to turn the former bean farm into a world-class commercial center.
The principles of smart growth at work
A recent study shows that over 33,500 workers leave San Joaquin County each day to drive to jobs in the Bay Area. The results are painfully obvious to anyone crawling along I-580. In fact, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission declared in September that stretches of I-580 in Livermore and Pleasanton are now the second and third most congested roadways in the entire region, behind only the Bay Bridge.
Mountain House Business Park, said Clevenger, “gives us a tool to help bring those jobs back to San Joaquin County and to change that commute pattern.” As soon as the first buildings open to business tenants in 2006 and 2007, “it will create a whole new dynamic as those thousands of people driving past Mountain House daily see the birth of a new community and the possibilities that holds for their businesses and their families.”
This dynamic is part of what makes Mountain House Business Park a critical component of the smart-growth principals that form the foundation of the new town’s master plan. Ultimately, the business park is expected to create 20,000 jobs, many of which will be filled by the local residents. And because many of those jobs will be the kind of higher-paying professional jobs that are currently clustered in the Bay Area, Mountain House Business Park is expected to help stop the brain-drain on San Joaquin county’s most talented workers.
But smart growth is about more than just jobs. It’s also about creating a self-contained community in which residents can find everything they need close to home. Mountain House Business Park helps fulfill that goal by providing much-needed services, shopping opportunities and lifestyle amenities to the growing community of Mountain House. Already, over XXXXXX residents are eagerly waiting for the stores, restaurants, medical offices, spas, and professional services that Mountain House Business Park will provide. Those numbers are expected to swell to 43,000 over the next 20 years. For them, the business park will be a major shopping destination.
A distinctive gateway
Committed as Clevenger is to these smart-growth principles, he is equally serious about the business park’s role as the gateway to the entire community. Accessible from I-205 and I-580, as well as numerous connector roads, the Mountain House Business Park is a highly visible presence at the new community’s front door.
Impressed by Bay Area office and commercial parks that used their location along the shoreline to create a dynamic and pedestrian-friendly connection between the buildings and the water, he decided to bring that same feeling to Mountain House by using existing agricultural aqueducts to create 5 acres of man-made lakes and water features, surrounded by pedestrian walkways, open-air plazas, and modern steel-frame buildings with an eclectic Prairie-style architecture.
“You walk out the front door and you’re right at the water’s edge,” said Clevenger. “There are cascading waterfalls that create a comforting sound element and we’ve designed the walkways to keep pedestrians close to the water and provide easy access to the office space so all the water features will really interact with both the people and the buildings.”
The result is a unique campus environment, expected to attract the most demanding and discriminating professionals and companies. And, because they are open to the public street, the lakes and greenways will also become a visual and recreational amenity for residents and the students and faculty of the nearby community college. It’s part of the same commitment that brings 300,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and hotel space to serve both the business and office park and the new and growing community of Mountain House.
Clevenger is joined in that commitment by a talented team, including Paul Radich, who recently joined Pegasus Development as Vice President to take charge of leasing, marketing and government affairs. Radich, who lives in Danville with his wife and two children, previously worked for Sunset Development Company as Senior Property Manager for 1.5 million square feet of Class A suburban office space at the prestigious Bishop Ranch Business Development. Having seen that business park become an integrated force in the San Ramon community, Radich is excited about the opportunities that Mountain House brings to the Central Valley.
“Mountain House is the first new town to be build in California in 20 years, and I’m very excited to be a part of it,” said Radich. “It’s an ideal location and very well thought-out, and for me it’s going to be so fulfilling to be with the project from the beginning and to see the buildings go up and businesses start leasing space.”