Bay Point housing project includes first new county library in 50 years

BAY POINT — A major mixed-use project decades in the making has finally broken ground in East Contra Costa County, promising the community hundreds of affordable homes and the first new county-built library since the 1970s.

The long-awaited project, known as Orbisonia Village and Bay Point Library, hosted numerous county officialsTuesday afternoon to celebrate what Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston called a “huge day” for an underserved community.

A total of 384 units, a 21,000-square-foot library and 10,900 square feet of new commercial space will be built across 7.6 acres within walking distance of the Pittsburg-Bay Point BART station.

The project will be built across three phases: the first will include 167 units and the library, and is estimated to be complete by June 2029.

A timeline for the two following phases will be developed once the initial phase is complete, county officials said.

As an unincorporated area of the county, Bay Point does not have a dedicated municipal funding source or library system to establish its own infrastructure.

Supervisor John Gioia noted that Bay Point, with its roughly 24,000 largely Latino residents, is the largest community in the county, incorporated or not, without a library.

For decades, Bay Point residents have accessed library services at the Riverview Middle School Library, thanks to a 1994 partnership between the county and Mount Diablo Unified School District.

“We deserve nice things, like other communities do,” Scales-Preston, who represents Bay Point residents, said.

“We are Pittsburg strong and Bay Point strong, and we work hard to bring these things to each of our community members. And even if it’s unincorporated, we have still worked hard to bring these different services here and to show our community that you’re not lacking anything, that we’re fighting for you.”

The Library Foundation of Contra Costa, formed in 2023 to support the development of libraries in underserved communities, aims to raise $1 million to purchase furniture and equipment for the new library.

The foundation plans to raise an additional $500,000 to purchase an opening day collection of diverse materials and books covering a variety of subjects and in multiple languages.

“We know that Bay Point is a diverse community, and we want to engage with a wide spectrum of residents,” Susan Hildreth, chair of the Library Foundation of Contra Costa, said.

“Our goal is to raise funds so that the new Bay Point Library becomes the vital knowledge center this community deserves. Please help us and achieve that goal.”

Plans for the site have been in the works for more than two decades, but a library was not part of the original vision. It was through the community outreach of former Supervisor Federal Glover, who died in 2025, that a library was added to the overall vision for the site.

“Supervisor Federal Glover really cared for his community, and this is part of the reason why we’re all here,” Board Chair Diane Burgis said.

Supervisors approved the plans for phase one in 2022. At the time, Glover said the project was “a long time in the making.”

Most of the property was purchased by the county’s redevelopment agency between 2008 to 2010. The county took over the project after redevelopment agencies were dissolved in 2012.

The 2008 recession, among other hurdles, delayed the project, Supervisor John Gioia said.

In addition to supplying the land, the county is providing $10 million for the project, most of which coming from Measure X, a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2020. Another $9.9 million comes from a California State Library grant, and $2 million from the office of U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Richmond.

“Things take a lot longer than they should in government,” Gioia said.

“Thank you to the community who fought for it, deserves it, and is gonna see this happen. I can’t wait until it’s built. The optimism that it takes over many years to know we’re all committed to making this happen, I want to remind people, sometimes it just feels like it’ll never happen, but here we are.”