Gilead Sciences is planning a major expansion at its Foster City headquarters, which would involve demolishing a row of low-rise office buildings along Chess Drive and replacing them with up to 800,000 square feet of biotechnology and research space. The buildout is split into two phases and, if permitting keeps pace with the company’s schedule, Gilead says it could have the first building ready for move-in by the end of 2028.
The proposal surfaced publicly last Friday, as first detailed by the San Francisco Business Times. Industry coverage has also pointed out that Gilead has had its eye on this parcel for years: Fierce Biotech reported that the company paid roughly $120 million for the 12-acre Chess-Hatch complex in the mid-2010s.
What the plan would build
City planning records show Gilead wants to demolish 12 existing one- and two-story commercial buildings, totaling about 191,507 square feet, and replace them with as much as 800,000 square feet devoted to biotech and R&D uses. The application materials are posted on the City of Foster City’s project page for the Chess-Hatch site.
Under the draft plan, Phase One would involve the removal of eight buildings, totaling approximately 123,536 square feet, and the construction of a two-story building of up to 200,000 square feet. Phase Two would demolish the remaining four buildings, totaling approximately 67,971 square feet, and add up to 600,000 square feet of multi-story lab space, along with a parking garage.
Where this fits in Gilead’s bigger push
Gilead describes the Chess-Hatch project as one piece of a broader U.S. expansion. In September, the company broke ground on a roughly 180,000-square-foot pharmaceutical development and manufacturing center at its Foster City campus, and it has said it plans about $32 billion in U.S. investments through 2030.
Company statements and national coverage put the wider program’s impact at more than 3,000 direct and indirect jobs and roughly $43 billion in projected economic value. The Chess-Hatch expansion is framed as part of that larger investment wave, rather than a one-off real estate play.
Where the proposal stands
The Chess-Hatch application is listed as “Under Review” with Foster City’s Community Development Department. Staff report that Gilead has applied for an amendment to the site’s General Development Plan, a vesting tentative map, and a Use Permit/Specific Plan for Phase One.
Those entitlements will trigger additional environmental, traffic, and design review, along with public hearings, as the city moves through the process. Meeting dates and project documents are being posted on the city’s planning portal for the Chess-Hatch project.
Environmental history and hurdles
The site has a lengthy paper trail. Foster City prepared a master Environmental Impact Report for the Chess-Hatch plan in 2009 and adopted an addendum in 2013, so some groundwork under the California Environmental Quality Act is already in place, even as the new application narrows the planned uses to R&D.
The CEQAnet record for the original Chess-Hatch EIR and consultant files indicates that traffic, stormwater, and sea-level resilience were key topics in earlier reviews. Those same themes are expected to be central in any fresh look at Gilead’s revised plans, with the CEQA docket and consultant materials providing the technical backdrop.
Why this matters for Foster City
The timing coincides with Gilead's continued reshaping of its Bay Area footprint, marked by a mix of new construction and earlier job reductions. That context has already raised familiar local questions about how many jobs the project will bring, what it will do to traffic and parking, and how much pressure it could put on housing.
Regional reporting on the company’s 2025 workforce changes helps explain why Gilead is both consolidating operations and spending heavily on new labs and manufacturing capacity. As the Chess-Hatch proposal progresses through the pipeline, residents can expect detailed traffic and environmental mitigation plans to be presented as part of the public review.
If approvals are granted, the Chess Drive corridor near State Route 92 could be transformed over the next several years into a dense research and lab hub, reshaping commute patterns and the look and feel of this stretch of Foster City.
