Fremont officials have green-lit a proposal by Kimco Realty Corp. to redevelop a portion of the Fremont Hub mall, replacing tens of thousands of square feet of retail space with 314 housing units, a 13,000-square-foot pharmacy and a parking garage.
The planning commission unanimously approved permits for the 5.86-acre project at 39150 Argonaut Way this week after a previous approval granted by the city’s zoning administrator was appealed to the body because further environmental review was needed.
“It is a magical mixture we can bring to the Fremont community,” said Michael Strahs, vice president of development at Kimco.
The mixed-use project reimagines a corner of the 51.7-acre shopping mall that was developed nearly 60 years ago and contains nearly 630,000 square feet of retail or commercial space.
The mall’s anchor tenants include Target, which operates a 123-727-square-foot store, and Safeway’s 54,741-square-foot supermarket.
Under the proposal, 14 tenant spaces would be demolished to make way for the six-story apartment complex with 14,157 square feet of ground-floor retail and a new CVS pharmacy on the mall premises.
Strahs said the first phase of the project calls for constructing the pharmacy and allowing CVS to continue to operate in its current building so as not to disrupt the business.
After CVS moves into its new location, the existing pharmacy and several retail stores would then be demolished to make way for the other mixed-uses.
The housing component includes seven townhomes, 40 studios and 154 one-, 100 two- and 13 three-bedroom apartments.
The community organization East Bay Residents for Responsible Growth initiated the third-party appeal of the zoning administrator’s ruling from December that sparked Thursday’s review of the permitting decision.
Ariana Abedifard, an associate attorney at the Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo firm, said the ruling was appealed because the project did not disclose significant environmental and noise impacts and failed to mitigate them.
But planning commissioners sided with the city staff, who found that arguments made had no merit and the burden of proof to overturn the decision was not met.
Strahs said Thursday that there was no specific timeline for the project to be under construction or completed, adding that the developer had not chosen a general contractor yet.
Oakland-based TCA Architects designed the project.
