PLEASANTON — Amazon has bought big chunks of land in an eastern Pleasanton district of lakes and quarries, a deal that creates potential expansion sites for the e-commerce behemoth. The acreage that Amazon has grabbed is in a section of Pleasanton that city officials began to scrutinize a decade ago in an on-again, off-again study effort that has produced no firm plans for the largely undeveloped area.
Amazon paid $75 million for the properties, according to documents filed on Sept. 16 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office. The unit of Seattle-based Amazon that took ownership of the huge swath of Pleasanton parcels was Amazon.com Services Amazon.com Services is a commerce and delivery unit of the tech titan.
The seller was an affiliate of Lionstone Investments, according to the Alameda County documents. Lionstone had owned the land sites since at least as early as 2012, county records and city documents show. The just-filed deed doesn’t show precisely how much acreage Amazon bought from the Lionstone affiliate. That’s because the county property documents indicate that Amazon bought portions of some of the parcels, but didn’t spell out just how much. However, 304 acres is the estimated amount of land that Lionstone owned in the area that corresponds to what the real estate firm sold to Amazon this month, according to a 2012 document that the city of Pleasanton posted. The document was a “preliminary background report” regarding the “East Pleasanton Specific Plan.” Pleasanton has yet to make any final decisions — or even any definitive preliminary plans — about the future of this area. The city planning documents show that a variety of isolated uses were, at least as of 2012, scattered about the 304 acres.
“The Lionstone Group land is situated partially within the Pleasanton city limits,” the municipality’s 2012 study said. “It includes a small office building, heavy equipment maintenance shop, limited warehousing space, lubricant storage shed, and two temporary office buildings.” A big section of the acreage now owned by Amazon is near the corner of Stanley Boulevard and Valley Avenue and is across the street from Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area. Another section is near El Charro Road and Stoneridge Drive. Some of the just-bought parcels are listed as vacant commercial land while others are listed as sites for sand and gravel quarries, according to Alameda County records.
An Amazon.com commerce and delivery complex could conform with commercial land uses. The acreage that Amazon bought is part of the 1,000-acre East Pleasanton Specific Plan area, which is within the larger Livermore-Amador Valley Quarry Lands, according to the 2012 city report. “This area has become the subject of planning interest by the property owners and the city of Pleasanton for future reuse and conservation,” the report stated.
