Fremont buys a large office building downtown – why?

The City of Fremont is buying a 23,000-square-foot office building at 39180 Liberty Street in downtown Fremont on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, in Fremont, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

The Fremont City Council purchased an office building next to the City Hall complex, with the intention of converting the building into a new city hall at some point.

The 23,000 square foot building is located at 39180 Liberty St. in the emerging downtown Fremont area. It currently has several commercial tenants, including real estate and financial firms, law offices and a mental health clinic, according to business listings on Google.

The Board unanimously approved the purchase of the building for $6.54 million at its August 15 meeting.

The purchase agreement does not require any changes to the terms of the existing leases, and city officials have not specified any immediate plans for the companies that call the building home.

Mayor Lily Mae reflected on Fremont’s past – “five small towns pulled together” – and used the building’s purchase to look forward to the next stages of the city’s development.

May said: “We hope this is something that will be an opportunity, whether we use it in the civic center of our city, or – as we’ve also talked about in the past – the performing arts, or also just a space for gathering in terms of housing that we need to stick to.

Officials said that short- and medium-term uses for the building could include moving some sections of the city as space becomes available. But the impulse for the purchase is strategic in nature, as Fremont looks to the future of the downtown area and its housing needs.

The office building — along with adjacent city real estate properties such as the City Hall buildings on Capitol Street — would create what officials describe as a “grand complex” that the city would control entirely. In the long term, the building could be part of a new city hall, with redevelopment of the existing city hall site into mixed-use housing that would contribute to Fremont’s commitment to assessing regional housing needs and be “significant progress toward achieving a critical mass of new housing”. residents and businesses downtown,” according to city employees.

In March, the city said its allocated share of the area’s housing needs for the next eight years is about 13,000 units, more than 7,000 of which are slated to be affordable.

Christina Briggs, assistant city manager, said the building is described as part of a larger puzzle of furthering the city’s goal of creating a “walkable and vibrant mixed-use destination for the entire community, with Capitol Street serving as the primary retail backbone.” the Council.

Since the adoption of the Downtown Fremont Community Plan in 2012, Briggs said, the area has seen “significant investment from the private sector, and the long-term vision for the city is really starting to take shape — it’s exciting.”