El Cerrito This Summer: The Small Signs of a Bigger Shift on San Pablo

If you walked the Ohlone Greenway between Fairmount and Central this spring, you passed a construction fence that wasn't there a year ago. Behind it, crews are pouring foundations for a six-story building where BART riders used to park their cars. A block east, a new Sichuan kitchen opened in March. A block south, a comfort-food spot is uncorking an Italian wine club in August. Three doors down from that, the Natural Grocery Annex now hosts a live band every Wednesday evening.

None of these are the kind of headline that reaches people outside El Cerrito. Taken together, though, they describe something bigger than a summer roundup.

El Cerrito's long-standing shape as a suburban strip along San Pablo Avenue is quietly being replaced by a walkable transit district anchored at the Plaza BART station. The small changes this summer are the first visible evidence of that shift.

The construction fence at 515 Richmond Street

The most consequential thing happening in El Cerrito this year is easy to miss because it looks like a construction site. On March 5, city officials, BART, and the developer team held a groundbreaking ceremony on the parking lot beside the El Cerrito Plaza BART station.