Antioch Council approves new retail project on Lone Tree Way on unusal split vote
Wednesday, March 26th, 2025
Majority of parcel that’s remained vacant for 20 years finally being developed, just not as originally envisioned
By Allen D. Payton
Starting their regular session an unusual 55 minutes late, the Antioch City Council met on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, and approved the new Lone Tree Retail Project on an unusual 3-2 split vote with Councilmembers Don Freitas and Monica Wilson joining in opposition.
The meeting began with a closed-door meeting at 6:00 p.m. before the regular session began at 7:55 p.m.
“We had a closed session before this. So, here we are ready to go,” Mayor Ron Bernal explained for the delay.
Acting City Attorney Derek Cole reported out from Closed Session saying, the Council met to discuss three items. The first was an employee evaluation. No reportable action. Second was conference with real property negotiators on the Sycamore Square police substation. The council gave direction to its negotiators. No reportable action. Third, was a “Qui Tam” including several agencies. No reportable action was taken, he stated.
Lone Tree Retail Project Approved on Split Vote
The Lone Tree Retail project on three parcels totaling 3.22 acres next to the In-Shape Fitness health club at 4099 Lone Tree Way, is part of an 18-acre Master Planned Development, named Antioch Town Center, that had previously been approved in 2004, when Freitas was Mayor, for fitness, grocery and hard and soft retail uses. The health club was built in 2007, but the rest of the site has remained undeveloped.
Following council discussion with both Freitas and Wilson expressing their concerns that the project didn’t fit with what they had envisioned for the site, the Council voted 3-2 on Tuesday night to approve the project.
According to the City staff report, the new project consists of three buildings: a car wash, fast casual restaurant (aka Quick Service Restaurant or QSR), and combination, fast casual restaurant and retail building, along with associated site improvements Tenants with signed leases include Mister Car Wash, Habit Burger & Grill, Chipotle and to be determined retail. It will also include an adjacent multi-family residential project on the nine acres behind the project.
A representative of the project applicant, Architecture Plus, Inc. of Modesto, Paul Rothbard, former CEO and owner of In-Shape Health Clubs, said the larger restaurants suggested by members of the public won’t work at that location as those types of restaurants want freeway visibility.
At the March 11th meeting, he said they also had spoken with multiple grocery stores, but none were interested.
“The rear nine acres are in contract with a developer, a local, Central Valley, to build a residential complex,” Rothbard said. “They’re ready to go…in Q3 of this year.” His father and partner on the project, Morton, was also in attendance at the meeting.
The son said they’re hoping to be under construction with the retail project by this August and have it completed by next July.
Rothbard also mentioned that the Chipotle will have a drive-through for picking up orders made on the app.
The Council then heard opposition from three members of the community during their March 11th meeting, with the main concerns being the fast food uses, no grocery store and no affordable housing included in the adjacent multi-family residential development.
Brian Heron of Fresno-based Commercial Retail Associates, who has been working on the property with the Rothbards since 2005, responded to those concerns, saying, “Under the previous PD..7,000 square-foot, sit down, in-house restaurants were suggested. Back then, we had agreed to get those 7,000 square-foot restaurants. Since COVID, it’s a whole new world. By and large those are obsolete concepts and…not willing to come to this location. And we have tried…many and many a time.”
The brands are “in demand in your community,” he added.
“We have tried getting all the grocers,” Heron continued. “We’ve spoken to Sprouts…to Nugget…from big to small. We went from Food 4 Less, down. We’ve tried Amazon. There isn’t a grocer for this site. We went into the next phase of that development, anchor…in 2008, 2009. The market shifted. Once again, change.”
During Council discussion, Freitas spoke first saying he was “very surprised”, “disappointed” and “very, very saddened.”
“We had a very, very grandiose view of this particular development…and I embraced it,” he continued. “I’m conflicted…because the world has changed, and we all are aware of that.”
Mayor Pro Tem and District 2 Councilman Louie Rocha asked, “Are we really in a position that we can turn away business and revenue?”
District 1 Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker then said, “What the opponents are saying is ‘we don’t want this, bring us something else.’ But this is not our property. We’re talking to the actual owners who are trying to develop it because they lost money on it for 20 years for not being able to get a project completed.”
But then she switched things up and said, “My recommendation was to sell it to someone who wanted to develop more housing.”
Mayor Ron Bernal spoke next saying, “I was also surprised, not at the uses, but the way they’re oriented.” He asked if staff if there was an attempt to place the drive-through on the back side of the building. When you’re looking at 30 cars sitting up there with marginal landscaping, that’s a whole different looking project to me.
City of Antioch Associate Planner Nathan Tinclair responded saying, “One of the things we have to look at on this parcel is it’s already partially developed. There’s already this main entrance drive with the main, kind of circle with the access points to the adjacent parcels.”
He then shared his concerns with the project being presented to council “with a couple days’ notice to look at it on really tiny sets of plans” as well as landscaping, since “Lone Tree is lower and the pads, higher.”
At Freitas’ urging, the council voted 5-0 to continue the item until their meeting last night, March 25th.
A noise study was completed to confirm that noise generated by the new project does not create a significant impact, in excess of the noise levels permitted in the City of Antioch General Plan.
According to Tinclair, the Planning Commission at their February 19, 2025 meeting, with two members (Robert Martin and Christian Hills) absent and one vacancy, voted 4-0 to approve the Addendum to the Adopted Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration. All four members, Chair Kevin Riley, Vice-Chair Seth Webber, and Commissioners Jennifer Perez and Cortney Jones, voted in favor.
The IS/MND was approved by the City Council in 2005. But the motion to adopt the Final Development Plan, Use Permit and Design Review failed on a 3-1 vote, with Webber voting no, as motions require four “yes” votes to pass.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the Council majority of Bernal, Rocha and Torres-Walker approved all four requirements for development of the project, while Freitas and Wilson voted “No”.
