San Ramon's Chevron Park has a new name
Sunset Development is rebranding Chevron Park, which it plans to redevelop into a massive mixed-use development, in partnership with the city of San Ramon.
Chevron Park is no longer the former campus of Chevron in San Ramon.
Sunset Development renamed a 92-acre property, which they purchased from the oil company last year for about $175 million. The site is now called 'The Orchards', Alexander Mehran Jr., the president and CEO of the firm, told the San Ramon Planning Commission at a hearing on April 13th. The name change is likely a tribute to San Ramon’s past as farmland. Sunset Development, along with the City of San Ramon are currently working on plans to develop the property.
Mehran, who was not available for comment on Tuesday, said to planning commissioners that the redevelopment would include a form of recognition for Chevron. Chevron purchased the campus from Sunset in 1981, and constructed a 1.3-million-square-foot campus. Sunset has renamed the site to avoid confusion with its new headquarters, which is located in 400,000 square foot of leased space on Bishop Ranch.
Orchards is located directly across from Sunset City Center. This retail-focused area of Bishop Ranch, which has been transformed by Sunset into a vibrant downtown for San Ramon, was once a business park that only had offices. The former campus is centrally located and has a large scale. Its redevelopment plays a major role in defining the downtown.
Mehran, who told me this in March, said that Sunset sees the redeveloped Chevron Campus as a pseudo-urban area with all the amenities and conveniences of a big city.
He said that April 13 Sunset is leaning toward building approximately 2,600 homes in a variety of densities, along with 125,000 square foot of retail on the property. This was the scenario the developer had previously presented to San Ramon authorities as a medium intensity possible redevelopment. The residential redevelopment of Bishop Ranch, which includes the Chevron property, could include townhouses, row houses and five- or seven-story apartments.
The Orchards will not be fully developed for some time, even if the redevelopment plan is approved. Mehran noted that Sunset would probably build one residential building a year in order to avoid market saturation.
It's going take us a long time to finish all these buildings. He said that he thought they had said 20 years for Citywalk and now we are adding two years to The Orchards. It's going be a very long time before we reach the end. Maybe 2040s.