You’ve been waiting for a place to gather.

A place to meet a friend for a drink. Or get out for a last-minute date night. A local place where your kids are welcome, and adults will truly enjoy.

You’ve been waiting, and we’re thrilled to show you Castro Valley Marketplace at this moment in time. From above, thanks to a drone, with exceptional clarity.

Organic Produce. Good coffee. Live music.

Hands-on cooking classes. Craft cocktails. Sushi.

Freshly baked bread. Hand-mixed spices.

Olive oil on tap. Sustainable meats. Curated events.

All coming to 3295 Castro Valley Boulevard in Spring 2020.

After years in dormancy, the former Daughtrey family department store building is finally being transformed into a department store of food, and the community’s new living room, right before our very eyes.

In partnership with Alameda County, the Castro Valley Marketplace owners were able to begin construction in January 2019. The progress made over the last year has been exhilarating to witness for us, and from the response to our construction updates on social media, you are pretty excited, too. For the first few months of construction, most of the action was deep inside the building, and after years of hearing rumors that “something [was] coming” to the Daughtrey’s building, people understandably needed to see the progress to believe it.

So when we were finally able to share the first photos of the interior in February 2019, your unbridled enthusiasm has kept the team going through the entire exhausting and beautiful process that a large construction project entails.

First the building was cracked open to let the light through, carpets and ceiling panels were peeled away so we could polish the floors beneath, and a beautiful mosaic begins to take shape with designer Sudhish Mohindroo and Rita Soyfertis of Tesserae-Mosaic Studio. Sparks flew as custom steel fabricated for us by local craftsmen Florence Metal Products was welded into place for the mezzanine. Less sexy but critical progress plumbing the building was next.

The last few months have been such a flurry of activity, with all the interior spaces being framed for the individual merchants, it’s hard to keep up. Thousands of pounds of block and concrete are being removed. In their place structural steel and glass doors and storefronts that will lead to outdoor dining at the Cannery Kitchen & Tap.

But when the openings to the paseo were cut into the building, we all had to stop and take a collective breath. And take a freaking picture. The roof installation in this photo is almost complete. What a beautiful sight of Castro Valley on this fall day, and a building in the middle of a transformation.

As Donna Layburn of Alameda Natural grocery, said “It’s so exciting to see the actual physical progress. It’s going to be a beautiful place.”