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“Welcome again, to your very own Pleasanton Costco.”
That’s what Wil Ramos, the warehouse manager of the new Pleasanton location, said during last week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony before customers were let inside for the first time, marking the end of the 10-year wait for the new store.
Located at 7200 Johnson Drive — just off Interstate 680 between Stoneridge Drive and the I-580 interchange — the new Costco celebrated its grand opening with a recognition event at 7:30 a.m. Nov. 27 that was hosted by the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce.
It becomes the third Costco in the Tri-Valley, joining the stores in Livermore and Danville. The new warehouse store is approximately 160,000 square feet and comes with 768 parking stalls and 15 double-sided fuel pumps at its Costco gas station.
The atmosphere during the grand opening was reminiscent of a Black Friday morning, as hundreds of people then flocked inside to stock up on limited Pokemon card packages, HOKA shoes and discounted alcohol.
George Pimentel, a Livermore resident, said while it is nice to now have another Costco in the Tri-Valley so people don’t have to make the trip to either the Danville or the Livermore location, the experience that particular morning was a lot.
“It’s pretty hectic in there,” Pimentel said. “Getting one item and getting to the next item, that felt like it was a struggle … Everyone was just pushing and shoving with their carts.”
Liz Vieira, a San Francisco resident, was another one of the first people inside Pleasanton’s brand-new Costco on opening day along with her mother, who lives in Pleasanton.
“I’m stoked to have a Costco in Pleasanton,” she said.
Vieira said even though it was “definitely madness in there”, the new store was nice, clean and properly stocked that first day.
And while Vieira said her mom did not have a good time during the grand opening, she said her stepdad — who passed away a couple of years ago — would have loved to be inside the new store.
“Costco was his thing,” she said. “I remember him getting all excited and calling me up saying ‘there’s going to be a Costco in Pleasanton’ (but) he didn’t make it to see it. He would have loved it.”
Vieira’s stepfather probably first heard about the Pleasanton Costco vision back in 2014, which was when the city first brought forward the concept of the Johnson Drive Economic Development Zone initiative, also referred to as the JDEDZ.
The JDEDZ was the local regulatory framework that laid out the redevelopment of approximately 40 acres of land near Stoneridge Drive and I-680 into a commercial corridor including the wholesale retail giant and two new hotels, which both opened in late 2023 and at the beginning of 2024, respectively.
Before 2014, the Clorox company owned the land after having first opened as a research center in 1973 before the company expanded it into a technology center a few years later, according to archived news articles by the Oakland Tribune and the Pleasanton Times.
Then, in 2013, Clorox vacated the campus and Costco took over ownership of the land.
What followed was two environmental analysis and public review processes for the JDEDZ that spanned from 2014 to 2017. It was during that same timeframe the overall project saw two major setbacks.
In 2016, the JDEDZ was put on pause due to a citizens’ ballot initiative, Measure MM, which sought to limit building size in the JDEDZ to 50,000 square feet maximum. The measure was spearheaded by Pleasanton Citizens for Planned Growth, a group led by Bill Wheeler, owner of Black Tie Transportation, whose headquarters is a neighbor to the Costco property.
Although the measure did not explicitly reference Costco, many residents saw it as a vote on whether to allow the retail giant onto the property.
A majority of residents ultimately voted against the measure that same year, which allowed the city to restart its policy work on the JDEDZ for most of 2017.
However, as soon as the council at the time approved the original regulatory package in December 2017, another group — Pleasanton Citizens for Responsible Growth — sued the city that same month over whether air quality and traffic impacts were appropriately analyzed as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.
Wheeler’s group was unaffiliated with this second coalition.
After months of litigation, the council in September 2018 rescinded its original JDEDZ approvals in favor of additional environmental work in an effort to settle the lawsuit with Pleasanton Citizens for Responsible Growth, which put the design review applications for both the Costco and two hotels on pause.
The city then worked with consultants and reviewed studies focused on air quality before releasing those documents to the public and approving the revised JDEDZ in February 2020.
Shortly after, the group sued the city once again — the second lawsuit focused on the city’s final supplemental environmental impact report — but that second lawsuit failed on appeal in February 2022.
Matt Sullivan, a former City Council member from 2004 to 2012, spearheaded the Pleasanton Citizens for Responsible Growth coalition.
“I won’t comment on the history that led to Costco. It has been told enumerable times in public settings and the press and is now irrelevant except for those who value honest and transparent government,” he told the Weekly in a recent interview.
He previously criticized the funding structure for roadwork associated with the entire JDEDZ and the sales tax-sharing agreement for the city to repay a portion of the costs that Costco fronted for the public infrastructure improvements — money the city would then look to recoup through a JDEDZ transportation fee charged to other future developers to build within that area.
“It is ironic that people will camp out for a week to be the first when Costco opens,” Sullivan added. “We’re indifferent to the $20 million taxpayer gift from the city that led to its existence, and rejected a tax measure that would have rescued the city government from this type of fiscal mismanagement. But I guess they had their cake and were able to eat it too. They fired the current mayor and council majority who dared ask them to pay the price for their indulgence.”
A couple months after the second lawsuit failed, the City Council in July 2022 gave the final clearance to move forward with allowing the infrastructure construction, which estimated a total cost of about $33.5 million — an increase from the original estimate of $21.47 million in 2017.
And apart from some minor roadwork and PG&E-related setbacks, which set the opening date back from August to the day before Thanksgiving, the overall sentiment from most people at the grand opening was positive.
“It’s been a decade since we wanted this to be here so (we’re) very, very pleased and excited,” Kate D’Or, events and communications coordinator for the Chamber of Commerce, said regarding the store opening.
Pleasanton Mayor-elect Jack Balch said it was exciting to be inside the new Costco, not just because of the fact the long-awaited project is finally complete, but also because of how much sales tax revenue the new store will bring for the city.
“We’re hoping to use this as part of our solution for our budget challenges,” he said.
Pleasanton is currently trying to bring in more revenues to mitigate its outpacing expenditures that the city has been saying will lead to years of budget deficits — the new Costco has been a big talking point to help the city’s budget following the half-cent sales tax increase revenue measure failing in the Nov. 5 election.
But Balch said the store has also created a “buzz and an excitement in town that we haven’t really had for many big box type retailers.”
The incoming mayor said it really came down to the wire regarding the store’s grand opening with the store having received its occupancy permit the night before the first day. He also said seeing the roadway improvements and the amount of infrastructure for the new store come together was nice to see.
“We’ve all seen the trenches that were opened and extended throughout winter. So it’s really nice to see it all come together,” Balch said.
The JDEDZ project included mandated street improvements to reduce the impact of traffic from the new land-uses. Improvements included replacing aging infrastructure, such as street light electrical and traffic signals; making the Stoneridge Drive and I-680 northbound on-ramp wider in order to create a second lane; making Johnson Drive wider to create a second northbound lane; and traffic signalization improvements on Owens and Commerce drives.
However, according to city communication manager Heather Tiernan, there is still work to be done regarding the road improvements.
“Most of the major roadwork on Johnson Drive will be completed by the end of next week. Paving is scheduled for this week, and striping will take place next week,” Tiernan said. “Once the roadway repairs are complete, the remaining work will be relatively minor — irrigation, landscaping, sidewalk repairs, etc. Some additional minor repairs will likely be necessary, but their impact will be significantly less than what you see out there now.”
