Starting Saturday, BART riders will be able to climb aboard a train and travel on an extension that will take them farther south than the rail system has ever gone.

The 5.4-mile Warm Springs/South Fremont extension is one more step toward taking BART to the heart of Silicon Valley, a goal that might be achieved this year. For now, the long-anticipated, much-delayed extension takes riders to and from a section of south Fremont that has long been the town’s light-industrial backwater.

The first train Saturday will depart the Warm Springs station at 45193 Warm Springs Blvd. at 5:48 a.m. The first arriving train will pull in at 7:04 a.m.

What’s there to see once passengers arrive at BART’s 46th station? Not much. For now.

“You look at the land immediately adjacent to BART and that’s all land available for future opportunity,” said Kelly Kline, Fremont’s economic development director and chief innovation officer.

For the time being, aside from the glass rotunda at the entrance and the glass-and-white-painted steel station, there’s a blacktop sea of sure-to-be-popular parking spaces — nearly 2,100 of them, including 42 electric vehicle charging stations. Beyond the lot is the scenic backdrop of the Fremont hills, which are, for the moment, in verdant splendor.

On the backside of the station, west across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, lies an empty field and then the hindquarters of the sprawling Tesla plant, former home to Nummi and General Motors. To the east, across Warm Springs Boulevard, sits more empty land. Warehouses, self-storage units, building-supply outlets and machine shops, mixed with a few low-rise research and development buildings, are the nearest businesses. The nearest restaurant, Spin-A-Yarn Steakhouse, lies nearly a half-mile south.

BART’s arrival comes at a fortuitous time. All that vacant land surrounding the station is being transformed into the Fremont Innovation District, a plan under way to bring to the area more than 20,000 jobs and 3,000 housing units.

Signs of progress were visible from the station Monday. Across the street, brown trenches crisscrossed a green field and big sections of concrete pipes sat in lines. Behind the station, across the railroad tracks, bulldozers were starting to grade the site of the housing development.

“It’s fortunate for us to have a BART station landing in the middle of an already job-rich area,” Kline said. “Tesla already has thousands of employees. The fact that it has vacant land around it gives us a chance to densify the area.”

Even existing businesses are bullish about BART’s newest station. Saki Kavouniaris has owned Spin-A-Yarn Steakhouse, founded in 1951, for 20 years, all of which were filled with predictions and promises of a BART station.

“We’ve been waiting and, finally, it’s here,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t think it would ever happen, and it finally happened.”

Kavouniaris said BART’s arrival and the Innovation District’s growth should ease traffic on Interstates 880 and 680 and give commuters an alternative to driving. He also anticipates it will deliver new customers.

“It’s going to be great for my business,” he said. “It’s been a struggle for years.”

Down the road at Fremont Times Square shopping center, a strip mall filled with Asian businesses, proprietors are also optimistic. Ling Chen, manager of Hong Kong Chef restaurant, said she hoped the new station would shorten many commutes, giving people more time to dine at her restaurant, or at least pick up some takeout.

“It’s good, really good, for my business,” she said.

For commuters who struggle to find parking, or some other way of getting north to Fremont station, much of the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station’s appeal will be its abundant parking and its location closer to their South Bay homes.

“It’s going to be a lot more convenient,” said Rachel Matsuoka, 27, of Fremont, as she climbed into an Uber outside of Fremont station for a ride home. “Oh yeah, it’s walking distance from my house.”

BART’s journey to Warm Springs took longer than expected. Construction started in 2009 with crews tunneling under Fremont’s Central Park and Lake Elizabeth. It was supposed to open in 2014, but a series of problems, most recently software troubles connecting the new station to the automated train control system, pushed the opening back about 2½ years. Despite the delays, the cost of building the extension came in at $790 million, $100 million under budget.

About 6,000 to 7,000 passengers are expected to use Warm Springs/South Fremont Station on weekdays, said Jim Allison, a BART spokesman. BART’s not sure how many will be new riders.

Passengers bound for Powell Station in San Francisco will pay $6.60 for a 55-minute trip. The ride to Coliseum Station will take 32 minutes and cost $4.40, and a trip to downtown Berkeley will cost $5.15 and take 63 minutes.

Fremont’s downtown station has been the end of the line for BART since it started service in 1972. But the new station won’t have that designation for long. A 10-mile extension to Milpitas and the Berryessa neighborhood in east San Jose is under construction by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and could open as early as the end of this year.

But for now, the focus is on Warm Springs, an out-of-the-way place that’s growing into a new Bay Area neighborhood, and finally has a BART station.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

Public celebration

for new BART station

Trains will start carrying passengers to and from the new Warm Springs/South Fremont BART Station on Saturday, but first BART will hold a public celebration Friday.

What: Station open house, speeches, tours of three new BART railcars.

When: 10 a.m.-noon

How to get there: Parking lots at the station will be open and free. Shuttles will run between the station and Fremont station every 15-20 minutes from 8:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Where: 45193 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont