The Braden Master Planned Community groundbreaking on Sept. 26 marks the start of a new development, bringing together Sacramento County officials, local developers and community leaders.
Formerly referred to as Cordova Hills, Braden officials promise to reshape an unincorporated section of the county located just outside Rancho Cordova along Grant Line Road.
The Braden Master Planned Community is designed as a “10-minute town,” where essential amenities are easily accessible within a short walk or via electric mobility. This layout allows residents to reach parks, shops and services quickly and conveniently, promoting a more connected community according to Braden officials.
Local developer Somers West has worked on the project for nearly two decades, with approval granted by the county in 2013. At full build-out, Braden will encompass 2,667 acres, providing up to 8,000 residences, 1.3 million square feet of commercial space, and an extensive network of 75 miles of trails and bike lanes. Additionally, the development will include four schools under the Elk Grove Unified School District and six mobility hubs.
“Braden at its core represents a visionary approach to sustainable and interconnected complete community design,” said Rachel Bardis, chief operating officer of Somers West. “It’s a legacy and one that we hope stands as the model for future communities that prioritize people, the planet and progress.”
The first phase of the project, which features a Town Center, is expected to be completed by 2026. The development is designed to integrate homes, workplaces, and recreational spaces, addressing pressing social and environmental challenges.
“Braden means ‘wide valley,’ a name that’s true to our California Central Valley location. And our belief in wide-open possibilities,” according to the project’s website.
California State Senator Roger Niello expressed his support for the project at the Sept. 26 groundbreaking.
“This has been a long time coming,” Niello said. “Thanks to the development team’s perseverance, they pushed forward knowing they were building something truly special.”
Improvements to Grant Line Road will enhance access to the community and essential services such as power, water and sewer will be extended from existing Sacramento County providers. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office will serve as the patrolling agency, with fire services contracted from Sacramento Metro Fire.
The Braden development emphasizes sustainability at its core, featuring energy-efficient homes that reduce operating costs and minimize environmental impact, along with green infrastructure.
“Braden will have a profound and lasting impact on the people that live here,” said Dave Defanti, deputy county executive for community services. “This project represents a growth in environmental stewardship and will significantly enhance the quality of life across Sacramento County.”
Community leaders praised the project’s innovative approach. Peter Calthrope, founder of Calthorpe Associates, highlighted its potential to address America’s housing crisis.
“This site is half the solution,” he stated. “We need to create complete communities like this one where everyone has a place.”
Sacramento County Board of supervisors Rich Desmond, added, “This development is a shining example of Sacramento County’s commitment to ensuring that no project gets the green light unless it adds the creation of a cohesive thriving community.”
Sacramento County is getting a major new planned community. Officials held a groundbreaking Thursday for Braden, a development that could bring more than 8,000 new homes along with new commercial and retail construction southeast of Rancho Cordova.
The 2,667-acre project, long known as Cordova Hills, was first proposed more than 15 years ago. It is being developed by Somers West. The first phase of the project will focus on a town center along Grant Line Road. About 900 homes will be built initially.
“Everything is designed and meant to be people first and cars second,” said Somers West Chief Operating Officer Rachel Bardis. “Everything is human scale so you can walk to get your coffee. No more than 10 minutes away for your work, schools, entertainment and restaurants.”
Development of a new community in Sacramento County is slated to begin after 11 years. The community of Braden is on its way.
Braden is a planned community in Sacramento County near Rancho Cordova. At buildout, there’s expected to be about 8,000 units in the community. Rachel Bardis, Chief Operations Officer for Somers West, said the project is considered a major masterplan community, including plans for homes and more than 2 million square feet of commercial retail.
The project itself dates back 2003 and was approved in 2013. It’ll have its groundbreaking Thursday. Bardis said it’s taken a while to reach a point where development could actually begin.
Once complete, Braden will be a “human first, cars second” type of community, according to Bardis. She said the hope is Braden creates opportunities for walkability and bikability to become the first way of going through the area. Employment and schools on site along with mixed city housing types and grocery stores will also contribute to less vehicle miles traveled.
“It’s a really a bold and significant change to the manner in which typical communities or subdivisions are built,” Bardis said.
Homes are still a ways from being built for now, but the vision for the community is a clear one and one developers hope will be held in high regard.
“I think the most important thing is more than being part of a golf course community and seeing a pretty view, more people really want to just to be able to walk and see open space and be a part of that,” Bardis said.
She also touted the amount of trees that’ll be planted and Braden being an all electric community.
A community services district would also be set up that’ll contact various agencies like police and firefighters.
A rural area is about to change as work begins to build the Braden community in Sacramento County. Braden, known as Cordova Hills up until this year, has been in the planning stages for nearly two decades.
“From 2013 to today, it has gone through various approvals, ideation sessions, changes and pivot, and a lot of it driven with where our economy, where our residential, where things should live,” said Rachel Bardis, chief operating officer of Somers West.
The project will be located in an unincorporated area of Sacramento County and includes plans to improve the two-lane Grant Line Road for better access to the community.
“The vision is extremely strong with this project, but there are issues to work out. Obviously, we need to bring infrastructure out here. We have a very large preserve through the middle which will be an amenity both for the residents of the preserve as well as the future residents of the homes here” Sacramento County Deputy CEO, Dave Defanti.
The project will have 8,000 housing units in its 2,600-acre community, which will also host a K-8 school, 75 miles of trails and bike lanes, an amphitheater, and an opportunity for affordable housing on-site.
The first phase of the project includes a Town Center and is expected to be completed by 2026, with the first move-ins also anticipated for that year.
Braden is developer-funded which means that they didn’t receive grants or seed money for the site.
Construction crews broke ground Thursday on a new town known as Braden that is coming to Sacramento County. Braden is located just outside of Rancho Cordova along Grant Line Road in an unincorporated area of Sacramento. Local developer Somers West has been working on the project for nearly 20 years and it was approved by the county in 2013.
“It is the most bold change to what development should and can look like,” said Chief Operating Officer for Somers West Rachel Bardis.
Somers West is calling the new town a “10-minute town.” Renderings reveal the futuristic-looking community that will feature a multi-use area with businesses, schools, entertainment, 75 miles of trails and bike lanes, parks and a whole of housing.
“How we can have all the mixed densities the housing types, anyone from janitor to CEO together on one site,” said Bardis. Bardis believes this will be a possible solution for the housing crisis with 8,000 residences for all income levels. Over 900 of these residences are projected to be ready to move in by July 2026.
“As we look to make our next transition, I think not only are you looking for a place to live but that sense of community,” said Jordan Green who just moved to Sacramento from Michigan two months ago. Green is already curious about Braden that is being built across from the neighborhood where his family currently rents. “Having a space where everything is confined, everyone hangs out in the neighborhood so to speak and we add to that community,” said Green.
Developers believe the new town will take big steps towards meeting California’s sustainability goals with renewable energy and a network of EV shuttles connecting the new community. “People like myself with small children just excited to see more opportunities come their way that may live one day and raise their families,” said Deputy County Executive of Community Services Dave Defanti.
The new town will be over 2,667 acres with 1.3 million square feet of commercial space. It anticipates to create three elementary schools and one middle/high school. It will also require expansion of Grant Line Road so the new town can connect to major highways. This $25 million road-widening project will be federally funded.
Phase One will be the construction of the Town Center, the first of six mix-used villages. These 180 acres will include a school and over 900 residences. The housing types will include medium and large single-family homes, cottage homes, green court homes, live-work homes, townhomes, paired homes, condominiums and apartments.
Sacramento County is growing and a local company intends to develop thousands of homes in an area southeast of Rancho Cordova. The Sacramento-based company, Somers West, says their development will be walkable and bikeable.
Phase one broke ground on Thursday morning and will include about 180 acres and 900 homes along Grant Line Road. This is a fraction of the 8,000 homes that will fill the space once construction is complete. Phase one is more than just homes though. It will include the construction of the town center, the heart of Braden, and the first of the six mixed-use villages. Somers West says phase one will be a mix of residential, retail and civic spaces that will prioritize people, not cars.
The company will do mass-grating for some 900,000 square feet, putting in park blocks and planting thousands of trees.
The goal is to get the town center and retail spaces developed early on to attract business. Retail construction will coincide with home construction so those moving into the community already have all those walkable features from day one. Mass-grating is already underway for phase one and will likely go to the end of the year. From there construction will begin on the roads and housing lots.
Within weeks, grading could begin on a long-awaited master plan in unincorporated Sacramento County, now with a new name as well.
Braden, formerly known as Cordova Hills, could see its first lots turned over for housing construction in early 2026, said Rachel Bardis, chief operating officer of development firm Somers West.
“For what I do, being part of on a scale such as Braden is inspiring,” said Bardis, a veteran of residential development and construction in the Sacramento region who joined the project six months ago. “What was inspiring to jump over was the plan itself.”
Approved 11 years ago as Cordova Hills, Braden would have 8,000 homes at build-out and has about 270 acres at its center planned for a higher education campus, on 2,700 acres southeast of Rancho Cordova.
Although the project has faced both skepticism in the development community and criticism from environmental groups as “leapfrog development,” it’s far from a traditional project for the region, Bardis said.
Homes in Braden will be alley-loaded, as an example, and the plan calls for more commercial development upfront to create natural places where the first residents can meet and start forming community, she said.
Sidewalk widths, 18 to 24 feet, are also bigger than traditional for the same reason, Bardis said, adding the goal is to deemphasize the car and promote walkability.
In concept, the plan is like an infill project such as Sutter Park or McKinley Village in Sacramento, she said, but on a much larger scale. The first village “Town Center,” which Somers West has applied to start grading work for, would have 968 homes in a variety of styles and densities as well as 900,000 square feet of commercial space.
The latter could take the form of shops, stores, farmers markets, restaurants and workspaces. A central tree-lined boulevard, an extension of Chrysanthy Boulevard from the north, would be the principal geographic feature.
Bardis said the project’s planners took inspiration from similar “new urbanism” projects such as what’s now called Central Park in the Denver area. “This is the antithesis of everything that’s been done before in Northern California,” she said.
Somers West is also hopeful of landing a higher education partner to center the project around, she said, though she acknowledged there’s not one on board yet.
Other initial Braden features would include a community building, dog park and trail system, she said. Braden, which is an Irish word meaning a “wide valley,” was renamed from Cordova Hills to give a sense of wide-open possibility, Bardis said.
“You never have these major roads that you have to cross,” she said. “They talk about the missing middle housing, this is the missing master plan.”
IT’S ON SACRAMENTO. The 2,600-acre property known as Cordova Hills, quiet since its 2013 approval for development, is waking up. With a new name. And a radically new approach that addresses some of our state’s — and world’s — toughest issues. From unaffordable housing to climate change.
The time is right, believes property owner Somers West. Because in the two decades that the Sacramento-based developer has owned the property, growth has reached its borders. So have major cultural shifts in how we live, work and gather — trends accelerated by the pandemic. The developer’s own experiences at its sister company, in a very different industry, also inspired the transformative community plan.
A mobility hub makes commuting green and easy into Town Center’s offices, shops and restaurants.
SBM Management Services is a worldwide provider of building management solutions. While serving some of Silicon Valley’s largest and highest profile businesses, SBM saw up close their challenges in attracting and retaining employees. This led to the creation of Somers West, which is breaking from the traditional developer mindset. Shaping Braden to improve Californians’ quality of life by addressing housing inequity, traffic and loss of talent. Even helping to reduce the carbon that is warming our planet.
Braden is designed as a true mixed-use community, where every part of your day is no more than 10 minutes away. Bringing a healthier balance to Californians’ lives with less time behind the wheel. More time on bikes, EV shuttles and walking in nature. Homes will come in a wide price range, accessible to everyone from CEO to entry-level. And with this higher quality of life, Braden will help retain California talent — and their employers. Kicking off the “new California town,” Braden’s first phase will include a town center with homes, green spaces and workplaces — traditional and very not, for the diverse ways we work today. As well as great places to eat, shop and even learn at a neighborhood K-8 school.
Shady “park blocks” wind throughout Braden, encouraging a foot-powered, outdoor lifestyle.
Homes with shared green spaces inspire barbecues, playdates and a tight-knit community.
“We’ve designed a community where the car really takes a backseat,” says Denise Gammon, Community Developer at Somers West. “They’re people-centered streets. Whether you’re biking to a food hall, walking to school with your kids, or working at the town center, everything’s all right here.” Eventually Braden will include 8,000 residences, 6 mobility hubs and a vast nature preserve in the middle of it all.
Somers West has assembled a team with some of the country’s top talent. Starting at the Irvine Company, Gammon has 35+ years of experience in developing high-profile projects from coast to coast, including the acclaimed, sustainable development of Stapleton in Denver (now known as Central Park). The team also includes world-renowned planner Peter Calthorpe of HDR/Calthorpe and town planner for the Stapleton redevelopment. And award-winning Lake Flato Architects.
Somers West plans to break ground for Phase 1 later in 2022. The company is currently pursuing collaborative partners for Braden’s innovative commercial and residential projects.
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