Presidio Bay Releases Renderings for Menlo Park Urban Village

Presidio Bay Ventures has unveiled the look of its nearly 700-unit urban village in Menlo Park.

The San Francisco-based developer has released renderings of three apartment complexes and three office buildings, along with shops and restaurants at 345 Middlefield Road, SFYimby and the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The 17.75-acre development would replace 16 former federal buildings, including a 20,000-square-foot office lab once home to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Presidio Bay bought the 412,700-square-foot campus last year at auction from Uncle Sam for $137 million, or $332 per square foot.

The new renderings reveal slight tweaks to the expansive project, including reshaping the office grounds with housing, offices, shops and restaurants and public parks. The new look features soft warm tones to complement the property’s redwoods.

Plans call for 670 apartments and townhouse-style units in three seven-story residential buildings containing 779,050 square feet of housing.

The residential complexes will include 10 studios, 345 one-bedroom units, 188 two-bedrooms, 46 three-bedrooms and 81 townhouse-style units. Of the 670 homes, 118 would be set aside as affordable.

The proposed village will include three similar-looking commercial buildings of five or six stories containing 713,000 square feet of offices.

The project will include 43,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, a 10,800-square-foot childcare center and 1.5 million square feet of parking for more than 1,700 cars and more than 1,200 bicycles. It would contain a sports court and a two-story pavilion along with parks, plazas and lawns.

The residential exteriors would be sheathed with travertine tiles, brick veneer, cast-in-place concrete and warm-toned metal panels, according to SF Yimby. The offices will include terracotta panels, silver metal, copper-tone metal and mass timber.

The overall project will be overseen by Gensler, with Gehl handling the masterplan and RG-Architecture the residential buildings. Studio MLA will cover landscape design.

Pending approvals, the cost of the multiphase project could exceed $1 billion. A timeline for construction was not disclosed.

If built, the project would complete nearly a quarter of the 2,946 homes Menlo Park must plan for under its state Housing Element mandate.

The new campus is a mile away from Springline, a $245 million urban office village developed by Presidio Bay on 6.4 acres at 1300-1302 El Camino Real and 550 Oak Grove Avenue in downtown Menlo Park. The firm has also filed plans to build 347 more units downtown.

Presidio Bay Ventures, founded in 2012 by Cyrus Sanandaji, has 5.8 million square feet of residential, life sciences and tech office projects in eight states valued at $5.4 billion, according to its website.

– Dana Bartholomew