Pacific Commons facts for kids

Pacific Commons is a huge area in Fremont, California. It's a special kind of development that mixes different uses. This means it has places for businesses, shops, restaurants, and sometimes even homes. It covers about 840 acres and is still being built by a company called Catellus Development Corporation.

This area used to be home to the Fremont Dragstrip/Baylands Raceway Park, where people raced cars. It also had the Sky Sailing Airport, a place for gliders. Fremont is at the top of Silicon Valley, a famous area for technology companies. Because of this, Catellus first planned Pacific Commons to be mostly for high-tech research and development. They also wanted to add some shops, restaurants, a convention center, and a hotel.

Before the "dot-com bubble" burst (when many internet companies struggled), a big tech company called Cisco Systems planned to move its main offices here. They wanted to bring almost all their San Francisco Bay Area operations to a large campus in Pacific Commons. This campus would have had many tall office buildings. However, when the tech industry slowed down, Cisco put its plans on hold. It's still not clear if Cisco will move its main offices to Fremont. But in 2011, Cisco bought 149 acres of empty land in Fremont, mostly from Catellus. This made people think they might still move to Pacific Commons someday.

To help the environment because of this huge project, Catellus gave hundreds of acres of land to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This land is along the southern and western edges of Pacific Commons. Another way they helped the environment was by building a causeway (a raised road over water or wet ground). This causeway is part of Cushing Parkway and goes over the wetlands preserve. It connects Pacific Commons to Fremont Boulevard and Interstate 880.

Today, Pacific Commons has over a million square feet of space for research and development and industrial businesses. This includes a very large distribution center for Office Depot. There are still more than a hundred acres of land set aside for research and development that haven't been built on yet.

Pacific Commons Shopping Area

In early 2004, the City of Fremont changed a big part of Pacific Commons to be used for shops. By October of that year, Catellus opened a large shopping center. This shopping area is a mix of different types of shopping centers. It has big stores like Costco, Lowe's Home Improvement, Kohl's Department Store, Target, and Nordstrom Rack. Many other national stores are also here.

There are also smaller, but still well-known, chain stores. These include DSW Shoes, Old Navy, Total Wine & More, and Jo-Ann Fabrics. Plus, you can find many restaurants and places to eat at Pacific Commons. Some popular ones are PF Changs China Bistro, Claim Jumper, Market Broiler, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, and In-N-Out Burger.

A major new part of the shopping area opened in March 2012. This expansion is a shopping and entertainment section called The Block @ Pacific Commons. It feels like a lifestyle center, which means it's designed to be a pleasant place to walk around, shop, and relax. It has a Target store and a 16-screen Century Theater. The Block also has a walkway with shops and restaurants that leads from the Target store to the movie theater. The shops along Pacific Commons Boulevard are close to the sidewalks, making it feel like a busy downtown street.

After The Block @ Pacific Commons was finished, the Pacific Commons shopping area now has almost 1.2 million square feet of space for stores. It covers 106 acres. This makes it the largest shopping center in Southern Alameda County.

Main Stores You'll Find

• Lowe's (168,000 sq ft, opened 2004)
• Costco (149,000 sq ft, opened 2005)
• Target (138,000 sq ft, opened 2012)
• Dick's Sporting Goods (50,000 sq ft, opened Fall 2014)
• Century Theatres (68,000 sq ft, 3,005 Seats, opened 2012)
• Kohl's (98,000 sq ft, opened 2004)
• Burlington (47,807 sq ft, coming soon)
• TJ Maxx/HomeGoods (44,433 sq ft, opened 2013)
• Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts (35,395 sq ft)
• Nordstrom Rack (34,000 sq ft, opened 2011)

Other Popular Stores

• Total Wine & More (21,372 sq ft, opened 2016)
• DSW (16,998 sq ft, opened 2004, moved within the shopping center in 2019)
• Old Navy (16,800 sq ft)
• ULTA Beauty (10,782 sq ft, opened 2013)

Places to Eat

• Claim Jumper
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Five Guys Burgers & Fries
• In-N-Out Burger
• Jamba Juice
• Market Broiler
• Panda Express
• Panera Bread
• PF Chang's China Bistro
• Rubio's Fresh Mex
• Wingstop
• Ohana Hawaiian BBQ

Cisco Field Plans

In April 2006, the owner of the A's baseball team, Lewis Wolff, had an idea for a new baseball park. He proposed building a stadium called Cisco Field in Fremont. A large piece of land, about 143 acres, was available in Pacific Commons. It was just north of Mission Boulevard and south of Auto Mall Parkway, near Interstate 880. Most of this land has since been bought by Cisco Systems. Cisco had bought the land in the late 1990s, hoping their company would grow a lot. But this growth didn't happen because of the "dot com bust." Lewis Wolff's group also bought more land, bringing the total area for the ballpark village to about 240 acres.

The plan was to turn this 240-acre area into a mix of businesses, shops, and homes. It would also include a baseball stadium with 34,000 seats, designed just for baseball games. This would have been the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball. The whole development was similar to the Santana Row area in nearby San Jose, but with a baseball park added. The planned name for the park was Cisco Field. This was announced by the Fremont city council after they met with Wolff in November 2006.

The stadium was going to be paid for mostly by selling the homes and businesses around it. The plan included 520,000 square feet of business space next to the ballpark. It would also have a hotel, restaurants, a movie theater, and several parking garages. The plans also called for 2,900 homes. More than 580 of these homes, including 12 right behind the left and right field bleachers, would have been mixed in with the shops north and east of Cisco Field. The stadium itself was estimated to cost $450 million.

In addition, 2,318 town homes would have been built on 115 acres south and west of the ballpark. These homes would have been built in stages. Designs showed that a 41-acre piece of land owned by the team would have provided almost 6,000 parking spaces until the town homes were built there. The earliest the stadium could have opened was for the 2011 baseball season.

However, in 2010, the deal for Cisco Field in Fremont fell apart and was canceled. Instead, San Jose was then considered as a possible location for the ballpark.