Sycamore North Project Receives New Name

Hercules's long-gestating Sycamore North project has a new name: Town Centrale.

The 40,000 square-foot project is an amalgamation of residential and retail units contained within two contiguous buildings that are joined at the center of the site by a plaza and tower.

City Council agreed to extend the close of escrow until March 15 and on March 12, the City Council approved another, more substantive amendment to deal with the cost issues and extend the close of escrow to July 19, 2013, according to a city manager report.

However, more changes are being sought by the project buyer, which may stall the project's completion as staff hopes to bring an amendment to the City Council for consideration on April 9, 2013.

The mixed-used project contains approximately 140 apartments, four live-work units, and approximately 12,000 square-feet of ground-floor retail space, with 166 on-site parking spaces.

All entitlements are in place, according to the report, and the project developer, Presidio Development Partners, was scheduled to close in February; however, asked for additional time to deal with recent cost estimates that significantly exceed budget.

Here is some background from 2011 on the project from the City of Hercules:

The residential components are located on the second through fourth floors and the retail is at the ground floor. The retail component also includes parking on a set of “ramps” along the north side of the building, sloping downwards from the two ends of the site (Tsushima to the west, and South Front to the east).

The 49 units in the rental residential component will all be rented to very low-income households (earning less than 60% of the area median income) for a period of at least 10 years, at which time they will be sold to low- and moderate-income households (earning less than 120% of the area median income).

The units in the for-sale residential component will be sold upon completion of construction. Of the 47 units in the for-sale residential component, 26 will be sold to low- and moderate-income households (the “affordable for-sale units”). The total number of affordable units will thus be 75 (49 rental and 26 for-sale), with the remainder of the for-sale units (21) being sold at market rate. The affordable for-sale units will carry some form of re-sale control (whether in the form of limitations on re-sale, a second mortgage in favor of the Agency, a right of first refusal to purchase in favor of the Agency, or a combination of these elements).