Similarly in Novato, about 2,000 residences have been built on the grounds of the former Hamilton Air Base area in the southeast part of the city in the years since the base was transferred to the city. Yet those residents have had a dearth of retail services without going north to Vintage Oaks Shopping Center or west across Highway 101.

That is changing as Barker Pacific Group has added local services such as a YMCA and delis to its Hamilton Landing commercial redevelopment of seven aircraft hangars at the former air base. Also, United Kingdom-based Grosvenor is preparing to build a 100,000-square-foot Safeway-anchored retail center with a gas station on the Nave Drive frontage road just north of the Courtyard Marriott hotel on North Hamilton Parkway.

It's into this context that Paul Thompson, president of Novato-based West Bay Development, Jerry Suyderhoud of Orion Partners and two other Marin County investors are proposing 30,000 square feet of professional-office condos at Main Gate Road and C Street.

The five-building project, called Main Gate Plaza, received a Novato Planning Commission recommendation for approval on its first pass earlier this year partly because of local eagerness to see the nearly three-acre site redeveloped, according to Mr. Suyderhoud, who is marketing the project.

"This is a brownfield site that is ugly," he said. "The Hamilton neighborhood wants to see more than a gas station with a fence around it."

Those residents could see the shuttered gas station site surrounded by fencing replaced by the Spanish-inspired design motif of Hamilton-area buildings if the City Council approves the project at a hearing set for Aug. 14.

If so, the partners plan to start construction in spring and be ready to sell the units in late 2008 at a "cold shell" price of $300 a square foot, according to Mr. Suyderhoud.

Main Gate Plaza, as currently designed by TWM Architects and Planners in San Rafael, would have 1,000- to 1,500-square-foot units in three 4,000-square-foot buildings, one building with 6,000 square feet and another with 12,000 square feet on two floors served by elevator. Other proposed features are a central courtyard and green-building features such as photovoltaic panels.

Unlike Larkfield, Novato has had a handful of office condo projects in the past couple of years. First was the conversion of a building into Indian Valley Medical and Dental Suites a few years ago. Last year San Francisco-based Quorum Real Estate Group converted 18,000 square feet at 350 Ygnacio Blvd. to office condos at the same time HL Commercial broker Gary Gustafson built Creekside Office Condominiums with 12,400 square feet at 1744 and 1748 Novato Blvd.

For more information on Larkfield Office Park, call Mr. Reinking or Mr. Crocket at 707-543-8300 or visit www.larkfieldofficepark.com. For details on Main Gate Plaza, call Mr. Suyderhoud at 415-472-8723.