One of the most interesting and unique residential projects in the Northern California is preparing to open. Located on Bethel Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, in eastern Contra Costa County, Delta Coves is a master-planned, waterfront community that will offer 560 waterfront homes along a man-made lagoon. The project will launch this spring with seven model homes.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based DMB Development is developing the 310-acre, mile-wide project for owners Colony Capitol of Los Angeles, and Dune Real Estate Partners from New York.

Aimed at celebrating the Delta’s “laid-back boating lifestyle,” the project will feature all residences with private boat docks, a 230-slip marina and a private club known as Island Camp. The camp will be a 4,500-sq-ft activity hub, complete with a clubhouse, fitness facilities, pool area, event lawn, and a picnic pavilion.

Real estate offerings will comprise four product lines, with 1,800-4,000-sq-ft single-family homes ranging from $700,000 to $1.2 million.

Delta Coves is situated in a prime location, just four minutes from “fast water” at the gateway to 1,000-plus miles of waterways for unlimited boating, fishing and water sports pursuits. The development is centrally located between San Francisco, San Jose, Napa and Oakland. Additionally, BART’s new Antioch Station, which is eight miles away, will offer easy commutes to future homeowners.

Nick Taratsas, DMB executive vice president and Delta Coves general manager, says a highlight of the project is the Island Camp club house, which was designed by DMB, along with architect Hart Howerton of San Francisco. Davidson Communities is building this island amenity, which will offer gathering space, fitness equipment, family games and swim facilities.

To construct the homes, Taratsas says DMB is using two different builders. Blue Mountain Homes is building the smaller homes, which range from 1800 – 2200 sq-ft; and Davidson is building the larger residences that will go up to 4,000 sq-ft.

“The architectural vernacular and landscape needs to look as if it was grown from this region,” says Taratsas. To achieve this he says DMB visited other small cities “up and down the Delta” to find out what materials were used 50 to 100 years ago. This led the project team to design homes with a lot of board and batten, and post and beam construction.

DMB was brought on board by the owners in 2017 to develop Delta Coves. Before this, Taratsas says the project had a long, uncertain history. Previous owners attempted to bring it to market during the 1980s, 90s and 2000s, but entitlement, capitol, and recession challenges stalled construction, he says. When DMB arrived on the scene Taratsas says a lagoon and much of the project’s infrastructure was already in.

“All utilities had been placed and the roads were paved but none of it was inspected by official agencies so it had to be re-exposed, re-reviewed, retested and then put back to make it look brand new,” says Taratsas. “And we have been doing this for the past 18 months.”

The California Delta is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley at the crossroads of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The American, Mokelumne, Cosumnes and Calaveras Rivers feed into the two major rivers. The Delta flows west through a maze of 57 islands and channels, then on to San Francisco Bay, finally joining the Pacific Ocean.

In all, the Delta boasts 57,000 acres of navigable waterways. As the largest freshwater estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, this vital resource supplies fresh water to more than 23 million Californians, provides habitat to hundreds of distinct species of wildlife, and sustains hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland that produce about 45% of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.