Business View Magazine | February 2018

100 101 This allowed hundreds of acres of protective buffer land to be reused for other purposes, and Hercules began its transition to the bedroom and commuter community it is known as, today. In addition, the Pacific Refinery Company,which opened in Hercu- les in 1966, and provided hundreds of good paying jobs for residents, ceased operation in 1995, and returned its land to the city in 2000, further acceler- ating Hercules’ reinvention. That year, the city chartered an urban-de- sign-based land use planning effort with the intent of balancing the preservation of its undeveloped land with the redevelopment of its formerly indus- trial waterfront to create a transit-oriented, pedes- trian-friendly,mixed-use town.And, unlike many for- mer company towns that have become ghost towns HERCULES, CALIFORNIA when their main economic drivers moved out or closed down, today,Hercules is a thriving commu- nity of 25,000,whose main efforts over the last few years, according to Biggs, have been focused on the transformation of the 40-acre waterfront site,where the dynamite factory used to be, and the reconnec- tion of the city to other BayArea cities and towns. “The hallmark project we’re working on is called Hercules Bayfront,”Biggs reports.“It’s a public/ private partnership that eventually will have up to 1,400 new residential units, a hotel, and a new downtown with retail, commercial, and office space. Most people just drive through Hercules, so the idea is to create a little downtown on Bayfront Blvd. as a destination for dining and some level of retail. It’s been designated a California Catalyst Project by the What began over a century ago as a small company town, today Hercules is a beautiful waterfront community with handsome homes, safe neighborhoods, dedicated open space, access to roads, rails, and trails, and many new projects on the drawing board.