These Developers Plan to Revamp Dublin’s Downtown

Hines and American Realty Advisors are teaming up to revitalize a 26-acre piece of land into a Main Street-style downtown in Dublin.

The Houston-based developer and Los Angeles-based real estate investor aim to redevelop the Dublin Place shopping center at 7200 Amador Plaza Road, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The Dublin Place project, built in two phases, would turn a retail center of 15 stores into an urban village of homes, shops and restaurants, a life sciences and office campus and events space.

Hines has filed plans to build a 35,000-square-foot retail building to house current tenants, from Bassett Home Furnishings to Pieology.

The joint venture would then launch the ambitious redevelopment of the shopping center now anchored by Target and Hobby Lobby.

The project, designed by San Francisco-based Gensler, would include a 1-acre park similar to Patricia’s Green in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, walkable from the West Dublin BART Station along a tree-lined path.

Details about the second phase are scant, other than renderings, as plans don’t appear to have been submitted to the city, according to the newspaper. Its six-story brown-and-white buildings are surrounded by landscaped plazas.

Dublin’s Downtown Specific Plan calls for the addition of 2,500 homes and 2.2 million square feet of shops and restaurants, Economic Development Director Hazel Wetherford told the Business Times last fall.

The Tri-Valley city sees the American Realty Advisors’ project as a catalyst for redeveloping the rest of the 284-acre specific plan area.

ARA bought Dublin Center in 2015 for $51 million. Its redevelopment of the shopping center was delayed by the pandemic, according to city planners.

The privately held firm, which has $12.7 billion assets under management, has been in talks to buy properties in Dublin Center it doesn’t own, including Burlington Coat Factory, according to the city. It wasn’t clear whether Hines’ latest proposal implies an ARA purchase of those parcels.