Proposed Vallejo four-story office space and parking lot design under review

A plan to build a four-story office building on Vallejo's waterfront that hit a stone wall of resistance in mid-2012 is back -- with its developer eying new digs.

Waterfront developer Joe Callahan pitched a plan two years ago to build a split 106-space parking garage and office building at Maine Street and Mare Island Way, with designs to compete in a bidding war for a Veterans Administration federal lease.

The Vallejo City Council subsequently voted down the needed city zoning plan changes in August 2012, accompanied by acrimonious public outcry over the proposal.

On Wednesday night, the city Beautification and Design Review Board will get its first look at the project -- now eyeing a site two blocks closer to downtown and current home of the Vallejo Housing Authority building, at Georgia and Santa Clara streets.

This week's meeting will be a study session only, city Senior Planner Michelle Hightower said. City officials want to give the newly constituted board a chance to discuss the project without the pressure of a decision. Any recommendtion would occur at the earliest at the panel's Feb. 13 board meeting, Hightower said.

If this modified project were to move forward, the building now occupied by the Vallejo Housing Authority would be demolished, with that city division relocated to the nearby John F. Kennedy Library, according to a city Planning Division staff report.

In an October interview with the Times-Herald, Callahan said the city's years of legal conflicts with its downtown developer, Triad Downtown Vallejo, had hindered his efforts to move forward, but that he was gearing up for whenever the dispute was resolved.

Triad was suing for alleged breach of contract after the city severed ties with the company in mid-2009. Tonight, the Vallejo City Council will consider approving a settlement with the firm.

With January's seating of a new City Council, Callahan could also be facing a more sympathetic voting majority. Two recently departed council members, Marti Brown and Stephanie Gomes, were fierce opponents of Callahan's during the developer's initial waterfront planning stages -- dating back to 2004, to the point of litigation and a subsequent settlement agreement more two years later.

Callahan did not immediately return a call to his office for comment Monday afternoon.

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Proposed Vallejo four-story office space and parking lot design under review