I'm aware that the RPD is not a major aspect of RE3, but a significant portion of it is already in place with RE2 remake. I didn't mention any other locations besides of the city streets outside the RPD so I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to by "other locations" You must realize that the person I was responding to keeps repeating that no assets would be reused in RE3 when it's blatantly, obviously untrue. Ignore the rest of the RPD for a second, just the main lobby of the station itself being established already, a single room disproves his claims.
As for the second part, way to misunderstand the point. I'm not saying the game is completely bypassing pre-production at all, but that a decent amount of the heavy lifting is already done. Yes creating a new gameplay style, look and tone for the series was a major part of this new games development, an aspect that they don't have to again repeat. It's the same reason so many companies are compelled to churn out a sequel after the release of a first game, the games foundations/engine and the companies initial investment are already complete, meaning the sequel is both cheaper and "easier" to produce. Doesn't mean that I'm claiming no new art needs to be produced, that's a gross misrepresentation of what I'm saying.
Additionally I was saying that a plethora of assets required for the game are already in place. Do you think they will create new green/red herb, handgun ammo boxes, weapon models, ink ribbon assets etcetera? Of course not, they'll use what is already completed in addition to creating new assets for whatever new content is required. Do you think they'll start from scratch and throw out all the crashed vehicle models/building geometry/city textures? Of course not. This doesn't take away from the countless hours of work needed to create the actual new content, but to continually claim that the game wouldn't reuse any assets created for RE2 is lunacy. RE2 even reuses assets from RE7, a game set in a Louisiana bayou why wouldn't an RE3 reuse things for a game that takes place in the same exact city and shares some of the same locales?