By Cassandra Clark, Project Communications Director
We recently received a comment on our site regarding the relocation of Sazio’s Ristorante Italiano, located across and down the street from Eden Medical Center on Lake Chabot Road. The person asked, “How are you being a good neighbor by driving out a small family-owned business like Sazio’s without any relocation assistance?”
Like every issue, there is more to the story than what appears in the newspapers or is talked about in private circles. That’s why a blog is a great place to raise issues and open up a conversation.
Sazio’s restaurant has been in the same location for many years. They are wonderful people, serving excellent food (the ravioli is my favorite). The restaurant is located on a piece of property that includes single story medical office buildings and a few storefronts, where a sushi restaurant and barbershop were once located. Karen’s Flower Kottage was also on the site before they moved to a new location.
The property was sold to the Eden Township Healthcare District (not Sutter Health or Eden Medical Center) about three years ago. Since the purchase, the District has planned for medical office buildings and related parking to be built on the land.
While I do not speak for the District, it is important to know that every tenant of the property was fully informed that the site would eventually be converted to another use. All existing leases were honored through their expiration dates, or the tenant moved voluntarily, prior to the end of the lease. The owners of Sazio’s chose to wait, rather than take opportunities to move during the past three years. Ultimately, representatives from the District and Sazio’s will determine what lies ahead.
It is also worth noting that the plans for that site are not part of the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley project. Our project is specifically for the construction of the new hospital and adjacent medical office building, site improvements and eventual deconstruction of the old hospital.
While at first glance it may appear to be all one big construction project on Lake Chabot Road, it is not. We have different owners, different plans, different processes and approvals and even different timeframes. What we have in common is our community’s healthcare needs. The District’s project will benefit physicians in the community—some of whom will be displaced when the new hospital work begins—by providing much needed medical space for their busy practices.
As always, we welcome your questions and comments, and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.
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3 Comments to “What’s Up on Lake Chabot Road?”
Thanks for the great information Cassandra. Sazio’s is such a great restaurant. We hope it relocates to a nicer property, but one that is close to the hospital so we can still enjoy lunches there! As for the District property, I hope they do something soon to clean up that eyesore! It would be a shame to have a beautiful new hosptal with crumbling, unoccupied buildings across the street.
Thank you for the comment. I think there are many people in town who would have liked the owners to open in a new location sometime over the past three years. Let’s hope they will now. As for the property, we can see progress already. The District’s property is now fenced off and the demolition of the old office building has begun. We should see rapid changes now, despite some rain delays.
Cassandra, thank for your succinct explanation of the situation on the Eden Township Healthcare District property.
Although I am not a spokesperson for the District, I do have first hand knowledge about the demolition and new construction on the Eden Township Healthcare District property- across the street from Eden Hospital. The District staff worked diligently to help the owners of Sazio’s to find a new location (we found six possibilities for them locally), pay for relocation fees, and provide subsidies from the county planning dept. They chose to retire and not relocate. The District is in the process of bringing in a temporary medical office building to provide offices for physicians who must move because of the need to make room for our beautiful new hospital. In 3 years we hope to have a beautiful new medical office building constucted on the same District property site – for which the community can be proud. The demolition is going as planned, with the attempt to recycle as much as possible. (We get LEED points for this, and hope to build a “green” building on the site.) Let me know if I can answer any more questions.
Carole Rogers RN
Director, Eden Township Healthcare District