Hamilton Park

Marin County’s Hamilton Air Force Base—the nation’s first conversion of a military base into a mixed residential/commercial development—presented Holliday Development with a perfect opportunity to apply our experience and interest. The culmination of 20 years of research and community discussion, the Hamilton master plan featured parks, tree-lined streets, a town center, retail and office space, attached and single-family homes, a residential facility for seniors, open space, and wetlands. Holliday Development was instrumental in the creation of two portions of Hamilton: the town home community (Hamilton Park) and a senior-citizen facility (the Villas at Hamilton Park). Today, Hamilton is a thriving community reminiscent of California small towns of the 1930s and 1940s.

Completed 2000
Value $45 million
Number of town home units: 114
Number of senior rental units: 102
Project area: 445,000 square feet
Site area: 352,400 square feet
Average town home size: 1,482 square feet
Average senior rental size: 700 square feet
Density per acre: 21 units/acre
Parking: 250 spaces

• Conversion of a military base requires agreement of not only of community residents and developers but also of the branch of the U.S. military that would continue to use the base for housing.
• In creating the community, developers had to respect the wetlands, open spaces, and Spanish Colonial architecture of existing buildings.
• Creating a small town required the expertise and cooperation of numerous community groups.

Framework

In the early 1930s, the U.S. Army moved its airfield from San Francisco’s Crissy Field to Hamilton Field in Marin County. Hamilton Air Force Base, as it became known after 1945, served as a training and staging area for Pacific operations during World War II. Later it became home base for numerous military, training, medical, transport, and relocation programs. It was decommissioned in 1975 and became Hamilton Park, the first military base to transfer to private-sector ownership. In 1993, after Novato’s citizens had rejected many redevelopment plans, they approved the Hamilton Field Master Plan, which included the construction of more than 1,000 homes on 400 acres along with open space, retail stores, and commercial activities. Holliday Development and a handful of other developers partnered to create the first phase, consisting of six new neighborhoods in the heart of Marin County, all designed with pedestrians, families, and transit systems in mind.

Impact

Three years after their completion, Hamilton Park and the Villas at Hamilton Park are part of a thriving Hamilton community. Thanks to developers’ expertise and attention to quality, Hamilton is growing rapidly and is one of the first successful transfers of a military base to the private sector.