MEMORANDUM

DATE: Nov. 18, 2022

TO: Mayor and Members of the City Council

FROM: Jennifer Ortega, Community Relations Manager

SUBJECT: Council’s Weekly Newsletter

On Nov. 10, the Design Review Board (DRB) conducted Final Design and Site Review for the John Muir Health (JMH) Concord Medical Center Campus Seismic Upgrade and Modernization Project (Project).

The proposed Project includes the following major components:

• Construction of a new five-story hospital tower with a rooftop heliport (helicopter take-off/landing pad), a two-story central utility plant (CUP), and loading dock on the Main Campus (2540 East Street).
• Demolition of portions of existing hospital on the Main Campus (Buildings B, C, D, the existing CUP, the cancer center, and MRI buildings).
• Reconstruction of portions of Building A north façade where it is currently connected to Building B.
• Construction of a new three-story medical outpatient center on the North Campus (2700-2740 Grant Street), with a ground-floor connection to the existing medical office building at 2700 Grant Street.
• Site circulation, accessibility, landscaping and stormwater treatment improvements throughout the north and central portions of the Main Campus, and the central portion of the North Campus.
• Reconfiguration and expansion of existing on-site parking spaces on the Main and North Campuses (1,478 spaces existing, 1,623 proposed).
• Construction of four photovoltaic array canopies in parking lots (three on Main Campus, one on North Campus).
• Use of the surface parking lot at East and Bacon Streets as a temporary construction staging area; no long-term use proposed.

The buildings proposed for demolition do not meet current seismic standards, and the applicant has proposed the new replacement buildings to comply with State seismic requirements, which must be met by January 2030. The proposed new construction is intended to maintain (not expand) the current level of operations and existing uses on the site. To ensure continuous operation of the existing hospital throughout construction, the new hospital tower and CUP would be constructed adjacent to the existing hospital, and the existing hospital would not be vacated until the new buildings are ready for occupancy.

The DRB voted 3-0 to recommend approval of the project, with conditions that the final artwork locations, designs, and the master sign program return to the Board as staff report items once the project has been approved by the Planning Commission.

There were two public speakers who commented on the project, both suggesting the use of union labor.

On Nov. 5, Univision aired a news segment promoting the ARPA Small Business Reimbursement Grant to its Spanish-speaking viewers. To learn about the program, Reporter Carla Farias interviewed Chamber CEO Melissa Rea, as well as La Fritanguera Owner Jennifer Jimenez, who spoke about how businesses are struggling with the rising cost of goods.

As the grant administrators, the City of Concord and Concord Chamber began promoting the grant in October through press releases, social media posts, emails to business license holders, e-blasts, and flyers. The Concord Chamber offered support to applicants both virtually and in-person during scheduled office hours.

As of Nov. 16, two days before close of application, 320 businesses have applied for the 185-$5,000 grants available in round one. The selection process will consist of an initial screening of applicants based on priority criteria, followed by a lottery. Applicants will be notified of their application status on November 30. A second round will take place in spring 2023.

View the video clip and article | View the grant landing page

The City of Concord and Colliers partnered to advertise the upcoming PG&E office vacancy at Concord Gateway in the San Francisco Business Times. The advertisement consists of a native article available on the website for 30 days and a full-page print advertisement that will appear in the East Bay Book of Lists on Dec. 9.

Although PG&E has a lease with Concord Gateway through 2024, employees have already begun transitioning to the Oakland office and 90% are working remotely. As such, the 225,000-square-foot space could be made available in early 2023, with multiple users likely needed to fill the space. 

The advertisement will appear in the East Bay Book of Lists edition of the San Francisco Business Times, with the goal of attracting the attention of a wide range of industries. In particular, Colliers believes that banking, insurance, finance, engineering, construction, medical, and government would be well-suited to fill the space.

Economic Development staff is working closely with class A office brokers and property managers to raise awareness of Concord as an affordable, attractive office destination, while actively seeking opportunities to create programming that helps retain existing tenants.

On Monday, Nov. 21, the City and Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce are relaunching the Shop Concord digital gift card program, continuing the support of small businesses by encouraging residents to shop locally over the Thanksgiving weekend and into the winter holiday season.

Thanks to a $10,000 contribution from the City of Concord, customers can once again buy-one-get-one free, receiving a free $50 Shop Concord bonus card with every original $100 gift card purchase, a free $25 Shop Concord card with every $50 gift card purchase, or a free $10 Shop Concord card with every $20 gift card purchase, while supplies last. The e-gift cards can be purchased on the Shop Concord Yiftee page, which can be redeemed at more than 70 participating Concord business. To date, over $156K in gift card sales have been made with 86% of those sales being redeemed so far at participating locations.

Learn more about the program and how merchants can sign up at any time for free!

Economic Development staff recently updated the Economic Indicators Dashboard, which provides a snapshot into the state of the local economy and economic development activities. The information presented in this dashboard is the latest data available and includes comparisons from quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year (YOY). All quarters reflect the calendar year. Here are some things of note from the data presented.

• Building permit activity experienced more record setting activity in the previous quarter, with 1,564 permits issued in the quarter. That is the second highest in any quarter and the highest in a 3rd quarter of the calendar year.
• The local housing market is beginning to relatively stabilize, with median home sales prices only growing by 0.3% YOY.
• We have our first apples-to-apples comparison of sales tax data, now that we have been collecting Measure V sales tax for a year. The figures from Quarter 2 of this calendar year show a healthy rate of growth with overall sales tax revenue growing by 4.6% YOY and restaurant and hotel sales tax revenue continuing to recover with a 13.1% YOY growth.
• Transient Occupancy Tax experienced a significant rebound from the previous year, increasing 103.9% YOY.
• Office and Retail spaces saw increases in their vacancy rates from the previous year, while industrial vacancies decreased to currently low rate of 1.9%.
• The Concord Life Sciences webpage saw the most traffic on our concordfirst.com economic development website last quarter, thanks in part to a paid campaign effort on LinkedIn to promote Life Sciences and the Concord Life Science Center.

View the dashboard.

Several local eateries were recently featured in an "East Bay Bucket List" piece in the East Bay Times. Tacos El Patron, located at 2290 Monument Boulevard, was one of the restaurants that made the list for its birria tacos. Although technically located in Pleasant Hill, the taqueria is a part of the popular Concord Taco Trail, which was mentioned in the article as well. Concord brewery Epidemic Ales, at 150 Mason Circle, appeared on the list for its unique variety of beers, including experimental draft beers and slushies, and the creative artwork on the cans.

Read the article.

The holidays can be an isolating and lonely time for some. The Be a Santa to a Senior, or BASTAS, program is an annual service program sponsored by Home Instead and championed by the Commission on Aging. The program involves several partners and individual volunteers who come together through November and December to collect names and gift wishes from underprivileged seniors who may not have friends, family, or financial means to celebrate the holidays. The goal is to ensure that every senior in need gets at least one beautifully wrapped holiday gift.

For the past two years, the BASTAS program was forced to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic by turning to Amazon wish lists so shopping could be done online, and gifts could be shipped to City Hall, where they were picked up and wrapped by Senior Center Staff or small groups of volunteers.

This year, the Commission on Aging will return to working with local businesses and retail stores to help facilitate purchasing and distributing gifts by placing trees and paper ornaments within their various locations. Within the next week, the public will see the trees around town, and they are encouraged to take an ornament with the gift request, buy the gift (leaving it unwrapped), and return it to the original tree location or drop it off at the senior center. A large group of volunteers will wrap all gifts made up of community groups and individuals during the annual wrapping party on Sunday, Dec. 11, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Robbery

A man had his bicycle forcibly taken from him after being physically assaulted by a group of men in front of a Coin Laundry business on Willow Pass Road.

Rape

A woman reported being raped inside a car in the Veranda shopping center by someone she met on a dating app.

Suspicious Death

PD responded this week to a fire at a transient campsite on Salvio Street at Port Chicago Highway. A deceased man was found burned inside the tent. Detectives are working with the Arson Investigator and the County Coroner to determine further.

Public Works and Engineering staff have worked together to relocate the chilled and hot water HVAC pipes running to the Council Chamber. The pipes ran from the finance building, above ground across the sidewalk, and over to the Council Chamber. This effort is Phase I of the Council Chamber HVAC replacement with Phase II being HVAC unit replacement scheduled for summer 2023.

The in-grounding of the chilled and hot water pipes was necessary to restore access for equipment and workers to the sidewalk and surrounding areas during the re-roof and HVAC work scheduled for spring/summer 2023.

In partnership with Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery (MDRR) and the Concord Pavilion, the City held its annual cleanup event on Saturday, Nov. 5. The event was a huge success. Preplanning efforts, coordinating signups, and having designated help reduced wait times and ensured no residents were turned away. In all, 234 Concord residents dropped off 720 yards of waste, equivalent to 36 20-yard dumpsters.

Feedback received this year included the requests from residents for the City to offer mattress recycling. Mattresses are recycled under a separate program and require a third party to facilitate. Mattresses also carry an additional charge. Staff and MDRR are working through these details and hope to offer mattress recycling at the next annual cleanup.

To make it easier for Councilmembers, staff, and the public to access all of the news and information that the City is posting to its social media channels, Community Relations staff maintains a Social Media Feed web page on the City website.

The Facebook and Twitter feeds are embedded and update automatically. The Instagram images are updated weekly and link directly to Concord's Instagram accounts.

Viewers do not need social media accounts to access this content.