FREMONT'S "DOWNTOWN"
The city’s General Plan claims that Fremont was originally envisioned to have a "high-intensity, traditional" downtown area. Yet it has never really emerged as such, though several plans for a downtown have been created. In fact, a new "CBD Concept Plan" was just completed and approved by the City Council in October 2000. In 1956 the designated downtown area of the newly formed city was mostly farmlands. A variety of retail uses have been developed over the years (a total of 2.2 million square feet by 1990) and entertainment and civic institutions, as well as BART station, but a central downtown "hub" for the city has not yet materialized, and a significant amount of developable land remains.

Fremont’s General Plan has this to say about the failure to achieve visions for a true city center: "The development of the CBD as a ‘downtown’ has been tempered by three constraints: deletion in the 1970s of a freeway proposed to serve the CBD; the location of the regional shopping mall in Newark; and expansion of the land area in the CBD." With regard to the first reason given, evidently Highway 238 (Mission Blvd) was originally proposed to be routed through Fremont’s central business district, "but didn’t come about as anticipated after political battles too numerous to mention," says one former city official. Consequently, Fremont "didn’t achieve that centralization of a commercial district within a city…. today….what’s still going on is commercialization along a freeway" (Mission Peak Heritage Foundation 1989, p.83). Indeed, the mall along I-880 in neighboring Newark is a regional draw and much of the retail development in Fremont itself is oriented along major street arterials with convenient freeway access.

There have been many visions promulgated for Fremont as "a city," but one in particular, by the 1980s city manager, perhaps reflects the only partial satisfaction city officials have had over the years with Fremont’s otherwise rapid and successful growth: "I would like to see significant office tower development, primarily as a way of focusing on the center of Fremont. This can only add to the sense of Fremont as something that exists apart from the freeway. When you think of San Francisco, you know that it’s there because of its skyline. I would like to see something like that for us" (Mission Peak Heritage Foundation 1989).

Sources:

City of Fremont, 1991, Fremont General Plan, May 7, 1991, amended 2/14/1995

Mission Peak Heritage Foundation, 1989, City of Fremont, The First Thirty Years: History of Growth, Mission Peak Heritage Foundation, Fremont
source: Wilsey, Ham & Blair, "A Plan for the Fremont Central Business District," 1961
1950s photo showing land area designated for Fremont's future "downtown." And below, a schematic showing an early vision for the CBD.
source: Pacific Planning & Research, "Planning Program for Fremont, CA," 1956
As Fremont planned for its future downtown, city officials needed to consider the competing CBDs in the region.

source: Wilsey, Ham & Blair, "A Plan for the Fremont Central Business District," 1961
The newest plan for downtown, the "Fremont CBD Concept Plan," covers an area of 430 acres in the geographic center of the city. Amazingly, the plan indicates that over 50% of the developable parcels in the downtown area are currently in surface parkng lots -- a total of 155 acres. The central business district has been divided into 6 subareas for purposes of specific planning and future development and redevelopment:

1. Fremont Hub -- to become something of a traditional downtown area, or as the plan calls it, as "urban village," that is also expected to include up to 700 housing units.

2. Office Center -- cluster of office buildings, some up to 12 stories in height, around the BART station a few blocks from the city center.

3. Medical Area -- an expansion area for the existing hospital and Kaiser facilities.

4. South of Walnut -- continuation of existing mixed commercial, retail and residential uses.

5. BART Residential Area -- to become a residential cluster of high-density housing around the BART station.

In total the downtown plan calls for 1,50 new units of housing in Fremont's greater downtown area, a visionary policy that signals a change from the city's main focus in recent years on residential development on the hillsides to the east and south of the downtown.

Sources:

City of Fremont, 2000, "Fremont CBD Concept Plan," Final Draft October 2000

Urban Ecology web site (www.urbanecology.org/cities), "Sustainable Cities" program, Fremont downtown project
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