RICHMOND – The worst type of mall is a dead mall.
But this years-long, morbid reality has not yet galvanized Richmond officials and developers to settle on a clear vision to resurrect the former Hilltop Mall — a once-buzzing community jewel that started financially faltering years before shuttering in April of 2021.
After the 1.1-million-square-foot mall opened its doors in September 1976, decades of patrons reveled in its name-brand retailers, indoor ice skating rink and dual movie theaters — all tucked within Richmond’s northern borders with San Pablo, Pinole and El Sobrante.
These days, a 24 Hour Fitness and Walmart are the last lingering operators at “The Shops at Hilltop,” echoing how the pandemic accelerated the demise of legacy shopping centers across the nation.
Questions abound as to whether or not the 143-acre mall site can realistically be transformed into a space that serves the modern needs of residents living nearby and across West Contra Costa County. It could be an attractive regional project, given its convenient location smack dab between Interstate 80 and San Pablo Avenue.
Past proposals to rebrand the complex have repeatedly failed, including a suburban village of more than 9,600 housing units, a 99 Ranch Market supermarket, and even a life sciences and biotech space that could welcome commercial tenants without becoming too industrialized.
Frustrated Richmond residents envy the success of Bay Street Emeryville, where noteworthy storefronts and beloved restaurants have taken off near dense residential buildings; they long for new, experience-driven attractions, such as rooftop community spaces with Bay Area views, public concerts and even senior services.
Additionally, Richmond officials are banking that a hefty portion of the project’s land use will be zoned to support hundreds — if not thousands — of new residents at Hilltop, especially as the state has mandated the city to build at least 3,600 new housing units by 2031.
Mayor Eduardo Martinez said he believes “that Hilltop can become something that will put Richmond on the map. We just have to make sure that we can envision something that will do that.”
That’s where the Hilltop Horizon Specific Plan comes into play.
For the past two years, Lina Velasco, director of community development, said city planners have been talking with the mall’s teams about transitioning the site from a low-intensity, auto-oriented retail center into a high-intensity, mixed-use development.
Velasco doesn’t expect the mall’s owner — Prologis, a San Francisco-based real estate company that purchased the property in 2021 for $117 million — to submit a project application until land uses and site plans are finalized throughout 2024, which would then kick off necessary environmental and technical studies.
But the latest draft plans shared by the mall’s developer, Signature Development Group, are largely dominated by hundreds of new townhomes, apartments, duplexes and single-family homes. In a departure from earlier plans for a large employment center, current concept mockups feature retail spaces and data centers for roughly a quarter of the mall site, which is subdivided by new streets cutting through the middle of the property.
But rather than simply let the mall’s owner and developer have the final say on what is ultimately built at Hilltop, Velasco said the city’s elected officials can use their authority to craft policies about what is allowed — or even required — to be built there.
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“As you’re looking at achieving community goals and objectives, you’re in the driver’s seat,” Velasco said during Tuesday’s Richmond City Council meeting. While the city is currently behind schedule to meet different grant deadlines, she said “we need some additional direction and feedback in order to see if we can achieve true alignment, so that we can have development quickly.”
Richmond’s elected officials are tentatively set to consider final land use decisions by March, aiming to adopt a development plan by the end of 2024 or early 2025.
That community feedback has largely revolved around the desire to see more entertainment, jobs and housing bloom into a resilient, accessible community. However, Velasco confirmed that several trends that emerged during the pandemic are still complicating the planning process for this project; specifically, people are working from home more, eating out more and shopping online more.
City staff advised that housing construction may need to be prioritized, in order to generate more demand for retail or other major destination dreams, such as a hospital or even pickleball courts.
But some residents are already concerned that dense housing will negatively impact the neighborhood, especially as the number of cars driving through the area increases.
That fear is a stark departure from the mall’s heyday through the early 1990s, when Richmond’s Hilltop Mall was the “it” place to be, especially for youth growing up in the Bay Area.
KQED arts and culture reporter Janelle Hessig may have described the mall’s now-hazy legacy best in April 2021, writing about how the shopping center was also a “community hub of limitless spontaneous potential.”
“Like a game of Richmond roulette,” Hessig wrote, “you might get a phone number from a hottie who didn’t go to your school or you might get jumped at the bus stop outside McDonald’s. You might find a pair of stirrup pants that made your ass look like God or you might get spit on by some devious kid from the upper floor who disappeared before you could make it up the escalator.”
Councilmember Cesar Zepeda quickly pushed back on concerns about traffic and other changes during development, asserting that the city has time to plan for the impacts of future commercial, residential and community spaces at the old Hilltop Mall — one of the last places where Richmond can build up with unobstructed views of the Bay Area.
“That’s kind of a double-edged conversation; we have no traffic now because we have a dead mall,” Zepeda said during Tuesday’s meeting. “If we want something better, we’re going to have to have a little more traffic. But we can get creative in the next five, 10 or 15 years, figuring out how to slowly transition for new people coming into our community.”
