MILPITAS — A transit village has begun to rise next to The Great Mall in Milpitas, bringing apartments, an organic grocery store, a hotel and high-end stores and restaurants.

The development, known as The Fields, will offer residents nearby links to mass transit and will incorporate amenities including upscale athletic centers.

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Roadshow contest: Guess when BART to Warm Springs will open The Fields complex is under construction, and its builders hope to capitalize on an existing nearby Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail stop and the under-construction Milpitas BART station, which will operate at the corner of Montague Expressway and East Capitol Avenue.

“We really believe the future of single- and multi-family residential will be connected to these transportation nodes,” said Kyle Suryan, director of investments with Newport Beach-based Lyon Living, the project’s developer.

This new Milpitas project will include 1,185 apartment rentals to be built in four phases, 150,000 square feet of high-end retail and a 200-room Virgin Hotel.

“The apartments will be for families, tech workers, for millennials, for people now in Milpitas who want a place to live, young professionals,” Suryan said Friday.

The retailers will be a mix of stores and restaurants that will serve the everyday needs of people living in the transit village and nearby, as well as destination merchants that will draw shoppers and diners from farther away.

“The leasing interest for the retail and restaurants is very strong right now,” said Josh Amoroso, a partner with San Mateo-based Lockehouse Retail, which is arranging the renting of the stores and dining places.

Lockehouse and Lyon Living wouldn’t disclose names of any prospective tenants. But one potential store would be a market.

“We are talking to grocery anchors,” Suryan said. “We are in discussions with a few organic grocery operators.”

The Fields complex also will include “amenities decks” that are described as rooftop sites for the apartment buildings that will contain places to work out and socialize, Suryan said. Los Angeles-based ProActive Sports Entertainment will provide services in the amenities area.

A bridge will connect the hotel with one of the amenities decks.

“On each of these decks, we will have resort-style pools, an exercise area, gathering places with ping pong, pool tables, card rooms, fire pits, places where residents can socialize and connect with each other,” Suryan said.

San Francisco, Oakland and other Bay Area cities with BART stops were among the first communities in the region to seek to cluster homes and commercial real estate sites near mass-transit hubs. Walnut Creek’s Pleasant Hill BART station is another prime example of homes, offices and retail linked closely to a transit site. Other BART stops also have become magnets for development, including residential.

In recent years, though, Caltrain stops have increasingly turned into sites for current or future development of homes, offices, retail, or a mixture of some or all of those.

Now, the sites of future BART stations also are buzzing with proposed projects or new construction, including those planned for Fremont, Milpitas and San Jose.

Near the future Fremont Warm Springs BART station, Tesla Motors is eyeing a massive expansion of its existing electric vehicle factory, a larger complex that will add 3,100 jobs. Yet Tesla’s proposals are just part of an Innovation District that Fremont city officials hope will sprout in that location.

In Milpitas, besides The Fields complex, the Great Mall has undertaken a $20 million renovation.

In 2013, KB Home bought 10 acres of the existing San Jose Flea Market, saying the site is the beachhead for a potential transit village with thousands of residences, many of them high-density, along with stores, a new school and park lands. The site is a short distance from the proposed Berryessa BART Station in northeast San Jose.

In downtown San Jose, Trammel Crow seeks to attract one or more major tech companies to the city’s urban heart with a proposal for 1 million square feet of offices, housing and retail. The vast complex will include a tech campus for a major tenant. The development is planned for an area near the Guadalupe River not far from the SAP sports arena, the Diridon transit station and a BART stop.

“There is so much traffic on 101, 880, 280, any Bay Area freeway, that the need for housing near public transportation is critical,” Suryan said.