San Mateo’s Bayshore Commons office park is officially on borrowed time. The city’s Planning Commission voted unanimously last Tuesday to advance a plan to tear down the aging campus at 1650–1720 S. Amphlett Blvd. and replace it with 256 for-sale homes.
The proposal would bring 192 townhome-style condominiums and 64 detached single-family houses to the roughly 14.5-acre site near Highway 101 and a short ride from the Hayward Park Caltrain station. Of those, 38 units are set aside for moderate-income households.
Project site and design
According to city planning documents, the project would clear seven three-story office buildings that make up the Bayshore Commons campus, along with a single-story commercial building, and swap them for a new residential neighborhood. The plan calls for homes with two-car attached garages and a 0.4-acre central park as the development’s main communal open space.
The formal planning application (PA-2025-029) was submitted in April 2025, following an SB 330 preliminary application the city deemed complete in December, per the City of San Mateo. The filing lists B9 Sequoia Bayshore Owner LP as the applicant and details the development impact fees the project would have to pay.
Commissioners' reaction
Planning commissioners largely welcomed the shift from underused office space to housing. Commissioner Margaret Williams called it another great use of a site that’s way underutilized, while Commission Chair Seema Patel said she was a little bit disappointed the proposal did not go denser, according to the San Mateo Daily Journal.
The unanimous vote came after staff presentations and public comment that framed the project as a textbook case of “missing-middle” housing: more compact than standard suburban subdivisions, but not the high-rise towers often proposed along major transit corridors.
Why approvals are moving faster
The application is being processed under state housing laws intended to speed up residential projects, including SB 330, the Housing Crisis Act. That law lets developers lock in zoning and development standards at the time of a preliminary filing, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development. In practical terms, it limits how much local rules can change midstream.
San Mateo has recently become a hotspot for similar office teardown and conversion proposals, with thousands of new units entering the city’s development pipeline, as reported by The Real Deal. That broader wave, combined with local policies that encourage denser projects near transit, helps explain why this office-to-housing pitch is moving now instead of gathering dust in a file cabinet.
How this fits San Mateo’s housing goals
Despite its size, the project leans heavily toward market-rate homeownership rather than deeply affordable units, a tradeoff local officials have been scrutinizing as San Mateo works to hit state-mandated housing targets.
The San Mateo Daily Journal reports that the total number of homes in active development applications now makes up more than half of the city’s RHNA requirement for the 2023–31 cycle. Voters’ approval of Measure T in November 2024, which opened the door to taller, denser housing near transit, has also helped spur bigger proposals, according to the San Mateo Daily Journal.
City planners will be watching closely to see whether the growing pipeline ultimately delivers a healthy mix of rentals and deed-restricted affordable homes, or tilts heavily toward for-sale, mostly market-rate projects like this one.
Next steps
The Planning Commission’s recommendation is a major milestone but not a green light for demolition crews just yet. The project must still move through the rest of the city’s review process, including design refinements, additional permitting and any remaining hearings or approvals staff determine are needed.
The developer will be responsible for the identified impact fees and mitigation measures. City records list contacts for the applicant and Community Development staff for residents who want updates or to track future filings, according to the City of San Mateo.
