Riverbank’s Crossroads West plans move forward, developers promise modern amenities
Plans for a massive new companion development to the Crossroads shopping center in Riverbank are moving forward.
On Wednesday, the Riverbank Planning Commission unanimously approved several recommendations involving the annexation of 380 acres west of Oakdale Road for the new development called Crossroads West. The special hearing attracted a large crowd of around 80 community members who filled the council chambers and overflowed into a room next door.
The Crossroads West development will include new retail, housing, schools and parks. The plan, which has been in the works for five years, now goes to the Riverbank City Council for approval. The council is expected to take up the issue sometime in March, then if approved the project will go to the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission. Final approval of the city’s boundary changes could come sometime this summer.
The annexation area starts at Claribel Road and stretches north past Crawford and Morrill roads up to the city’s existing border just south of Patterson Road. Dutch Hollow Farms, at the corner of Claribel and Oakdale roads, as well as a large dairy farm off of Crawford Road would both have to be closed or moved to accommodate the planned developments.
Real estate consultant David Romano, representing the families who own the majority of the land in question, praised the city’s work on the project during the meeting.
About half a dozen residents asked questions during public comments, most concerning traffic flow and road congestion. Others worried at that the public wasn’t given time to review the voluminous more than 200-pages each specific plan and environmental impact report.
John Anderson, who presented the plan overview to the commission, said most of the information had been available for month, if not years, for the public to view online.
If all of the approvals proceed as planned, work could begin by the end of the year on the project’s first phase, a mixed-use commercial development on the land now largely occupied by Dutch Hollow Farms. The space could bring up to 555,000 square feet of new commercial space on the high-profile corner and be on track for a 2020 opening.
But Darryl Browman, president of the Browman Development Company which built and operates the original Crossroads, said said not to expect a mirror image of the existing complex.
“We are very proud of what we accomplished in Crossroads I. When we did Crossroads I it was really state of the art, sort of best in class,” he said. “One of the things that was a very important criteria in moving forward with Crossroads II is that in today’s environment I think some of the development criteria we would use in the past has changed. We believe it’s super important to bring other elements to the projects today.”
Browman said that includes possibly including residential space to the development, either vertically or horizontally, and building open gathering spaces into the designs.
Anderson said the entire development is expected to have a 20-year build-out to build and finish all of the lots. The majority of the Crossroads West project would be comprised of 1,872 new low-density housing units (traditional single-family housing developments), plus plus another 192 medium-density housing units (duplexes and triplexes) and 388 high-density units (apartments).
The project would also create more public parkland, including plans to double the size of the existing 11-acre Riverbank Sports Complex to about 22 acres. The annexation area also includes land to construct a new elementary and middle school as well as a new Riverbank fire station.
