HAP Withdraws from concord Naval Weapons Station, Grand Jury Report Also Out

The City of Concord announced that Housing America Partners (HAP)  withdrew their Statement of Qualifications to be Master Developer of the Concord Naval Weapons Station project.

Their withdrawal can be found here:

Hello Israel,

Respecting the time and energy of the needed to go over applications by the City of Concord, Housing America
Parners respectfully withdraws and retracts our Request For Qualifications application for the Concord Naval
Base project submitted on July 14, 2023.

No further assessments, deliberations and actions are needed on our part for our application and no further
comments are made at this time.

Thank you,
Dan Jimenez
Housing America Partners

At the Aug 26 meeting, the council was to interview, evaluate, and select a Master Developer for the former Concord Naval Weapons Station after request for qualifications was issued on May 15. They were set to interview Brookfield Properties and HPA. With the HPA withdrawal, it leaves only Brookfield Properties as the option available.

Click here for more info: https://concordreuseproject.org/DocumentCenter/View/2315/HAP-SOQ-Withdrawal

Grand Jury Report No. 2305 – “A Promise Unfulfilled”

• Grand Jury Report: Click Here
• City of Concord Response: Click here

SUMMARY

Almost twenty years ago, the City of Concord began to study future use of the land available after the decommissioning of the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS). In the intervening years there have been several false starts and the city’s portion of the former base remains undeveloped. Concord is at another crossroads and the civil grand jury makes recommendations to address a series of prior missteps and to adopt measures to advance and accelerate the productive utilization of the area.

In 2006, Concord was designated as the Local Reuse Authority (LRA) for a large portion of the decommissioned military facility. Ten years passed before Concord selected Lennar Urban as the master developer for the project. However, distrust grew between the city and Lennar and the project stalled in 2019 when Lennar was unable to negotiate a project labor agreement with the Contra Costa Building and Construction Trades Council. Lennar’s Exclusive Negotiating
Agreement (ENA) expired in March 2020 and the city council did not extend it.

Due to delays associated with the coronavirus epidemic, the next master developer selection phase did not begin until November 2020. In August 2021, Concord First Partners (CFP) was chosen as master developer. We make several findings regarding the 2020-21 bidding process and recommend major changes to improve the process in the future. Sixteen months of delays and extensions followed as CFP sought to create an economically viable term sheet outlining the material terms and conditions. CFP asked the city council to amend the ENA to provide CFP with an enforceable right to the property at the same time the term sheet was signed. The city council rejected CFP’s request to modify the ENA and extended the deadline to finalize the Term Sheet until January 2023. A proposed term sheet was released in December 2022, but the
city council voted it down and CFP’s Exclusive Negotiating Agreement expired in January 2023.

Now, seventeen years after Concord was designated as the Local Reuse Authority, little has been achieved and the project is once again at a crossroads. In the minutes of a 2022 meeting the Navy real estate contracting officer is quoted stating the Navy does “not want this to drag on for 6 more months or we (Navy) will have to cut.” In interviews with the grand jury, city staff and council members indicate that the Navy remains supportive of the city’s efforts to move forward with a third master developer selection cycle. The grand jury recommends that the city considers remedying various prior practices and select a master developer with strong financial resources, and with experience in multi-decade military base conversion projects and working with varied stakeholders and constituents.

During this investigation, the grand jury also reviewed loans the City of Concord made to the LRA from Concord’s general fund and two other funds. We developed several findings about the use of these loans and provide recommendations on improved reporting and the appropriateness of certain payments made from these loans.

Previous Stories:

• May 9 – Concord to Consider Master Developer Selection Process For Naval Weapons Station
• Jan 28 – Concord City Council Votes to Reject Naval Weapons Station Redevelopment Term Sheet
• Jan 6 – Concord Set to Talk Term Sheet for Naval Weapons Station Project
• Dec 20 – City of Concord Set to Talk Term Sheet for Naval Weapons Station Project