The Emeryville Public Market Development transforms a long-vacant parking lot into the civic center Emeryville has lacked, anchoring the postindustrial Shellmound Street corridor between the Bay and the regional Amtrak station.
An X-shaped plaza organizes the park into four distinct zones: a layered planting buffer along Shellmound Street to the west, a mass timber retail pavilion to the north, a sloped lawn and performance venue facing the Bay to the east, and a depressed stormwater planting area anchoring a major public art installation to the south.
The site’s geotechnical conditions and direct interface with Union Pacific’s active rail line had stalled prior development proposals for years. Bionic’s design turns that constraint into the project’s defining move: commuters descending from the City’s four-story pedestrian bridge over the tracks arrive at a grand stair, integrated with lighted handrails and bike channels, that frames a view to the Bay and delivers them straight into the park.
The park also functions as green infrastructure. 100% of stormwater from roofs and paved surfaces is captured through downspouts, flow dissipators, and slot drains, then filtered through bioretention planters before discharging to the Temescal Creek watershed and the Bay. Pollinator-focused planting, irrigated with reclaimed water, extends Emeryville’s contribution to the regional green belt.