DALY CITY (Map, News) - This year may be one of change for Daly City BART station, a windy transit hub that will soon feature 1,200 feet of retail space to house a coffee shop and a convenience store.

The new stores are part of a deal brokered late in 2007 among BART, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, and a developer, Metropolitan Coffee & Concession, that will bring concession stands to eight BART stations, including Pittsburg/Bay Point and other East Bay stations.

The Daly City station was supposed to get its concession stand four years ago, but a complicated dispute between a former concessionaire and a contractor at Pittsburg/Bay Point station put a halt to the project, BART spokesman Linton Johnson said.

“It was a very complicated ordeal that arose out of complications due to a kiosk that was supposed to have been constructed, but the concessionaire allegedly defaulted on the contractor’s payment,” he said. “That impacted us because we were left holding the bags.”

For Daly City BART’s passengers, the broken contract meant years of living with a green fence that blocked off a portion of the sidewalk next to the station, collecting trash.

San Francisco resident and coffee drinker Franklin McLaughlin, who often travels to Daly City, said he was excited to hear Peet’s Coffee & Tea may soon move in.

“I can’t wait,” he said, while buying a BART ticket at the station. But not everyone is happy about the newcomer. Jimmy Ebadi, who says he’s been operating a small kiosk with coffee and hot dogs for almost 20 years, said he was angry BART chose another concessionaire over him.

Some are also concerned about what the new stores will do to BART’s rule of no food or drinks on the trains.

“It’d be nice to get a cup of coffee, but I don’t think it’s a good idea because it would probably make a bigger mess on the station,” said Daly City resident Jorge Trinidad, who lives close to the BART station.

Construction of the stores will begin as soon as BART finishes seismic retrofit work on a column adjacent to the site, which should take several months, according to Molly MacArthur, capital projects spokeswoman for BART.

svasilyuk@examiner.com