Excerpt:

The City Council is preparing to sign off on a major real estate deal that’s been two decades in the making.

On Tuesday, the council will consider allowing Alameda’s city manager to affix his John Russo to the deeds for 1,379 acres of Alameda Point, a deal city staffers hope to close on June 4.

“It’s an exciting milestone for us to be getting the property from the Navy,” said Jennifer Ott, the city’s chief operating officer for Alameda Point.

The parcels to be transferred in this deal include 509 acres of land and another 870 in San Francisco Bay. Another 445 acres of the 2,676-acre former Naval Air Station – including the southern portion of what city leaders hope will one day be a new town center; the northwestern tip of the Point, which is expected to become park space; and the million-square-foot Building 5 – are slated for transfer to the city between 2014 and 2019.

The Point makes up about a third of the City of Alameda, much of it former marshland filled in between 1900 and 1940.