Menlo Park has officially deemed complete the application for an eight-story apartment building at 155 Jefferson Drive, clearing the way for the Bayfront-area project to move into the city's formal entitlement review process. The site sits along Jefferson Drive on a 1.38-acre parcel between Chrysler Drive and Constitution Drive, just blocks from Meta's sprawling office campus in a part of town that has been shedding its industrial identity for years.
The developer behind the proposal is Beam Reach, described as a Texas-based real estate firm responsible for the application, according to San Francisco YIMBY. The outlet reports the proposed building would rise roughly 83 feet and yield around 294,500 square feet, with 155,200 square feet dedicated to housing, 84,140 square feet set aside for parking, and 24,400 square feet of common open space. Those figures mark a shift from an earlier version of the project described in February, when the structure was pitched at roughly 85 feet tall and about 285,550 square feet overall, according to an earlier San Francisco YIMBY report.
Unit counts for the project have also shifted depending on the source and timing of the reporting. The newest account puts the proposal at 207 apartment units, broken down as 67 studios, 104 one-bedroom units and 36 two-bedroom units, per the same report. That differs from earlier reporting from the Almanac, which described a 199-unit plan filed with the city in January made up of 57 studios, 110 one-bedroom units and 32 two-bedroom units, intended to replace a single-story research-and-development building on the site.
Affordable Units and Parking Totals Still in Flux
The project includes 31 deed-restricted affordable units for low-income and very-low-income households, per the latest reporting. Earlier figures varied: the Almanac had reported 20 units reserved for very-low-income families and nine for low-income households, while Bisnow reported 21 very-low-income units and 10 low-income apartments in its own account of the development.
Parking numbers tell a similar story of shifting totals across reports. The current account describes 208 vehicle parking spaces and 312 bicycle spaces, while the Almanac's earlier reporting put those figures at 200 vehicle spaces and 330 bicycle spaces. A Menlo Park planning notice separately described a 199-unit, 200-space bonus-level development on the same 1.38-acre parcel.
The timing of Beam Reach's purchase of the property has also been reported two different ways. The Almanac stated Beam Reach bought the site in March 2025 for $11 million, while Bisnow reported the same $11 million purchase price but placed the deal in April 2025.
Design Team and What Comes Next
KTGY is responsible for the project's design, with landscape architecture handled by Bionic, according to the February SF YIMBY report. The building's facade is planned to be clad with a mix of materials including cementitious panels, horizontal board siding, painted stucco, metal panels and tiles, per the latest reporting. Senate Bill 330 is providing streamlining for the proposal, the report notes, a state law that requires developers to submit a complete application within 180 days of a preliminary filing under the Permit Streamlining Act, according to California Legislative Information.
With the application now deemed complete, the city's notice has initiated the entitlement review process, though the project will still need to clear environmental review, permitting and architectural review before construction could begin, the Almanac reported. How the approval process unfolds will depend on the CEQA path requested by the City of Menlo Park, according to the latest SF YIMBY account, which also noted that city staff had not replied to a request for clarification on the project's details.
A Neighborhood in Transition
The surrounding area, once dominated by office and industrial uses, is being transformed into a mid-rise residential enclave, per SF YIMBY's reporting. The 155 Jefferson Drive site sits close to the linear Meta Park office campus and near Lume, a mixed-use development from Greystar that the Almanac described as featuring 441 completed rental units and 42 for-sale townhomes still awaiting construction. The City of Menlo Park's own project page separately describes Lume as totaling 483 multifamily dwelling units.
Office vacancy in Menlo Park was just under 19% in the first quarter, according to Kidder Mathews data cited by Bisnow, a backdrop that helps explain the pivot toward housing on sites once built for research and office tenants. Beam Reach has pursued similar conversions elsewhere in the region: its Moffett Park redevelopment in Sunnyvale was unanimously approved by the Sunnyvale Planning Commission on June 8, Bisnow reported, and the firm is also pursuing a 5.6-acre office and life-sciences redevelopment in Belmont spanning 812,000 square feet across two buildings.
