Excerpt:

ity leaders and others celebrated a milestone Wednesday when they gathered to ceremoniously put shovels into the ground on a $500 million project to transform part of the former U.S. Navy base now known as Alameda Point into housing, shops and offices.

The groundbreaking at the edge of San Francisco Bay marked the official start of construction on the first major combined public and private development since the military base closed in 1997.

“We are now moving forward,” Mayor Trish Spencer told those gathered under a tent on a spot where Navy aircraft once taxied into hangars. “We are doing the next step.”

The 68-acre project calls for 800 apartments, townhomes and condominiums. It also would open up 600,000 square feet of commercial space for development at Alameda Point. The ambitious effort also will result in 15 acres of parks and open space and commits about $2.5 million toward rehabilitating and leasing an existing 100,000-square-foot building for light industrial and specialty manufacturing.