The San Ramon City Center project has been in the planning phases for over 10 years.  It has undergone a few starts and stops, a redesign of the plan, and some city/development give and take that had me scratching my head a bit.  Then last fall we saw the second sign of the project being real happened when the 2 story office park that was going to be destroyed for the new City Center was emptied of tenants.  Then right around the start of the new year a fence and banners went up around the block and all the trees were cut down.  And all of a sudden, within the timespan of the last 10 days, four 2 story office buildings have been turned into piles of rubble.

So this morning when I stopped for my coffee on the way to my morning meeting, I had to spend an extra 30 minutes to take some pictures…I’ve been meaning to do this for the past week but was just too busy.  Figured if I didn’t just take the time to do it this morning there wouldn’t be a building standing when I got back tonight.

The design for the City Center is by Renzo Piano, the same architect that designed the California Academy of Science in San Francisco.  Once the new City Center is complete, there will be (as the banner above indicates) 300,000 square feet of new retail space for 75 shops and restaurants and a new luxury movie theater (not sure what will be luxury about it…) surrounding an open piazza.

And just because I know there are some grown up kids out there and because I know my 5 year old son will get a kick out of…a short video of the destruction action: