Daly City shopping center may add 214 apartments

An mall owner has won preliminary approval to build a 214-unit apartment complex at its shopping center in Daly City.

The Daly City Planning Commission has approved plans by Kimco Westlake to build the seven-story complex at Westlake Shopping Center, located at 99 Southgate Avenue, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The project would require razing a retail building once inhabited by a Burlington Coat Factory store.

If approved by the city, the project would be the second housing development in the works at Westlake Shopping Center. The owner, Kimco Realty, has already won approvals to build 179 apartments to replace a 55,600-square-foot retail and office complex at 10 Park Plaza Drive.

The project would “add new, quality housing, including onsite affordable units, and more retail and dining options to the Daly City community without any displacement of current residents or small businesses, and all with a revenue boost to the city,” Michael Strahs, Kimco vice president of development, said in a statement.

The project – a gray, white and brown building designed by San Diego-based SGPA Architecture and Planning – would include recessed windows behind black and green balconies.

The 88-foot-tall complex would include 214 apartments and 10,800 square feet of ground-floor shops, restaurants and a pharmacy. A parking garage would be fitted into the first and second floors below the apartments.

A rendering depicts two landscaped courtyards on the second floor above the shops, surrounded by apartments in a U-shaped complex. A rooftop sky deck and lounge would offer views of Lake Merced and Twin Peaks.

Outdoor dining will spill out onto new tree-lined sidewalks to create a walkable environment.

Kimco Realty, a real estate investment trust based in New York, bought the Westlake Shopping Center in 2002. The center is anchored by Home Depot, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, Burlington and a Ross Dress for Less, according to its website.

Like every city in the state, Daly City is updating its housing plan, under which it must create more than 4,800 homes – nearly half of them affordable – by the end of the decade. It has joined a growing number of Bay Area cities to target shopping center redevelopment to help meet state-mandated housing goals.

In San Rafael, a builder is planning to redevelop the Northgate mall with 1,356 units, according to the Chronicle. In San Bruno, the Tanforan shopping center could be redeveloped with more than 1,000 units and a biotech campus. Other potential retail-to-housing projects include Bayfair Center in San Leandro, Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo and Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco.

[San Francisco Chronicle] – Dana Bartholomew