Why a Safeway at Sycamore Crossing?

Why have a Safeway at Sycamore Crossing?  Because it is the best undeveloped retail site in Hercules.  Sycamore Crossing is smack dab in the middle of our town.  This parcel has the most visibility from the busy streets of Sycamore and San Pablo, and from the freeway.  People go by the site all the time and can access it easily from different directions.  We drive down from the valley onto Sycamore Avenue.  We can motor, walk or bike in from the waterfront homes on the same street. We head north in our vehicles on San Pablo Avenue from Hercules by the Bay & Village Park.  Or, we travel south from Victoria by the Bay.  In short, Sycamore Crossing is reachable from many different sections of the city and is centrally located in Hercules.  And for any retail business, the mantra is always location, location, location.

An urban Safeway at the tip of Sycamore Crossing would be the main anchor store. We can envision an efficiently designed gas station on the same parcel, along San Pablo Avenue.  There could be a secondary retail anchor and/or other businesses on the rear portion of the property, and maybe some commercial or even residential building along Sycamore Avenue complementing the upcoming market rate apartments of Town Centrale (the unfinished Sycamore North).  These elements can all be worked out design-wise on the 11 acre Sycamore Crossing site.  More importantly, once built, these kinds of retail businesses have a very good chance of succeeding.

In 2013, so much retail buying for hard goods is done online from home or work.  But when it comes to both food and gasoline—which the vast majority of us require—we still have to go to the store.  Property Development Centers (aka Safeway) can construct this kind of essential retail on Sycamore Crossing.  This is what both the city government of Hercules and individual Herculeans need now.

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