A 476-unit apartment complex built on the site of Mervyn's old department store headquarters just changed hands in downtown Hayward for $205.3 million, cash on the barrelhead. The buyer, Essex Property Group, picked up Lincoln Landing in an all-cash deal along with its roughly 80,500 square feet of ground-floor retail.
The transaction was documented in filings with the Alameda County Recorder's Office that same day, according to East Bay Times. The price breaks down to $431,300 per unit, a figure that lands well above typical East Bay multifamily sales this year. The Real Deal reported that Essex acted through an affiliate to complete the purchase, adding a nearly 500-unit residential and retail property to its Bay Area portfolio.
Lincoln Landing's six-story buildings sit on a site that once housed the headquarters of the Mervyn's department store chain, which collapsed in 2008. Hayward city officials approved the residential and retail project roughly a decade after that collapse, and the complex's first phase opened in 2022, per the same account from East Bay Times. City Sports Club, a fitness center, anchors the development's commercial space.
A Price Tag Well Above the East Bay Norm
The $431,300-per-unit price Essex paid for Lincoln Landing sits 61.2 percent above the average sales price of $267,600 a unit for East Bay apartments so far this year, the station's report notes, citing Marcus & Millichap data. That gap underscores just how much of a premium buyers are willing to pay for a downtown Hayward property compared with the broader East Bay apartment market.
Zoomed out to the full Bay Area, multifamily properties averaged $387,409 per unit in the third quarter of 2026, up 11.6 percent year over year, according to a Kidder Mathews market report. The same report found Bay Area multifamily vacancy fell to 3.8 percent in the third quarter, down from 4.8 percent a year earlier, while average asking rent climbed to $2,910 per unit per month, a 7.7 percent increase year over year.
How Lincoln Landing Stacks Up Against Recent Bay Area Sales
Lincoln Landing's per-unit price trails several recent high-profile Bay Area trades. The largest multifamily sale in the region last quarter was Lynhaven, a 636-unit property in Hamann Park that sold for $346.5 million, or $544,811 per unit, Kidder Mathews reported. The Real Deal also detailed KKR Real Estate's sale of that San Jose property to Greystar.
The highest per-unit price among significant third-quarter sales belonged to The Village Residences in Outer Mountain View and Los Altos, which Kidder Mathews said sold for $273,404,370, or $825,995 per unit, across 331 units. The Real Deal's reporting on that same transaction described a 330-unit property that sold for $296.7 million to an affiliate of Property Reserve. Closer to Hayward, Roxborough Group bought the 246-unit Bidwell Park apartment complex in Fremont for $109.4 million, or $444,500 per unit, according to the Mercury News.
Momentum Builds for East Bay Apartment Demand
The Mercury News report also pointed to limited new construction and steady renter demand as factors expected to push vacancy down faster in some East Bay apartment markets this year than it did in 2025. That backdrop helps explain why a stabilized asset like Lincoln Landing, developed jointly by Bridge Investment Group and Dollinger Properties, commanded such a steep premium over area averages.
Bay Area developers, meanwhile, are still adding supply at a brisk pace, with 19,156 multifamily units under construction regionwide in the third quarter, up 28 percent from a year earlier, per Kidder Mathews. The average cap rate for Bay Area multifamily properties stood at 5.9 percent over the same period, a benchmark against which deals like the Lincoln Landing sale are typically measured.
