The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

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Alpha8472
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The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by Alpha8472 »

A Los Angeles developer has purchased the San Bruno mall and will turn it into office space for tech firms. All stores and the movie theater will close.

This mall was in a perfect location with a subway station, police station, and a freeway right next to it. The Food Court was very nice and the multiplex cinema was top notch. JCPenney, Target, Century Theatres, and Barnes and Noble are the main stores.

Tanforan was a racetrack for horses and an internment camp for Japanese people during World War 2.

I am shocked that the stores are closing. Maybe Target might survive.

Until 2012, San Francisco had no Target store and many San Francisco residents took the subway to the Target at Tanforan.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by arizonaguy »

It's a shame that it's closing but it's not all that far away from Serramonte / Colma (with 2 Targets across the freeway from one another). Honestly this may save Serramonte in the short term as Serramonte also has a JCPenney.

Having formerly lived in the area I always preferred Serramonte as it was significantly easier to get in and out with a vehicle. Tanforan is much better for those who rely on public transit though.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by storewanderer »

I am really surprised to see Tanforan closing. Dillard's tried to get into that mall in the late 90's but something happened; they were going to build a new building. I think the mall ended up with a new movie theater instead. That is a mall that I thought had managed to keep doing well even after multiple department stores left. I always felt the BART line right there was a huge coup for the mall.

Suspect this "office space for tech firms" will just move even more workers out of San Francisco.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by ClownLoach »

And when it finally gets built how much are you willing to bet it will become apartments or condos with some ground floor "tech space offices"?

I think everyone is tired of me saying this but there is a full on war on retail unfolding in California.

It's only going to get worse. As a publicly traded corporation owning a shopping center - even a massively successful one - if it is suddenly worth double as residential then you are basically obligated to your shareholders to shut it all down and replace it with homes.

The "mixed use zoning" thing is a shell game created by these developers to enable this.

We are only going to see more removal of commercial retail space - even very busy and successful space - if it's worth more dead than alive.

I'm assuming because this is a mall that Target doesn't own but leases. Maybe if they start losing their leased stores that each do $100 Million a year or more because of this developer scam trend they'll start lobbying to stop it. Right now the lease severance expenses are worth the price to evict even a busy Target or Walmart. It's like clipping coupons for these guys to hand out $5M to Target and say sorry, you need to be out by X date when the bulldozer rolls if the end result is still going to be a $100M or more windfall.

It will take a longer time to get to the suburbs, but more urban areas are going to realize that suddenly there is nowhere in town to shop sooner than you might think.

And I'm telling you right now that if you follow the money on these developments - somewhere along the trail you'll find Jeff Bezos and Amazon. It's just too easy for Amazon to strategically say "hey we would love to rent some of that tech space you're thinking about building at the XYZ Power Center site" knowing full well that if they are able to squeeze enough brick and mortar retail out of business the sales will wind up in their lap.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by lake52 »

Plans were revealed by Alexandria for this property. They are keeping the move theatre building and relocating the Target. There also will be a central shop area and some storefront retail.

Alexandria is an extremely aggressive developer and with how hot life science is in the Bay Area right now (basically 100% leased with 3,000,000 sq ft in development already 40% leased) they’re not going to sit on this one for long. I’d imagine they’ll start building Target their new store and tear down the mall shortly after.

https://www.sanbruno.ca.gov/888/Tanforan
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by Alpha8472 »

This is sad. Tanforan was a very nice looking and safe mall. There was a multiplex cinema connected to a big food court. It was always busy. There were many stores and a train station right next to it. This mall had it all and it was one stop shopping. The San Bruno Police Department is right at the entrance to the mall by the train station. This was a safe and convenient mall.

Now they are going to turn it into office space and housing with very little retail.

They probably wanted to get rid of the cinema at first, but it is on the top floor a relatively new parking garage. Without the mall or food court going to the movies will require that you drive somewhere else for food or shopping. It used to be nice to browse Barnes and Noble after your movie or get food in the food court.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by storewanderer »

The residential units look terrible. Many will have few windows/limited daylight. Looks like very long hallways and difficulty getting in and out of the units as well. Will be really bad for folks with dogs.

The smaller lab buildings look nicer. Too bad they are too greedy to do similar small pod type buildings for the housing.

The large Target and large Cinema do not fit in with this project. Smaller retail/restaurants in front of AND between the two would seem to be a better fit. Residential seems like a terrible "buffer" to have between a Target and a Cinema.

Also the distance between Target/Cinema and parking does not make sense. Or the distance between residential and parking.

Overall this was clearly done in a way to maximize the space but the layout is a sloppy mess and this place will be frustrating for people who have to deal with it every day, except perhaps the folks working in the lab buildings.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by lake52 »

storewanderer wrote: October 22nd, 2022, 1:51 am The residential units look terrible. Many will have few windows/limited daylight. Looks like very long hallways and difficulty getting in and out of the units as well. Will be really bad for folks with dogs.

The smaller lab buildings look nicer. Too bad they are too greedy to do similar small pod type buildings for the housing.

The large Target and large Cinema do not fit in with this project. Smaller retail/restaurants in front of AND between the two would seem to be a better fit. Residential seems like a terrible "buffer" to have between a Target and a Cinema.

Also the distance between Target/Cinema and parking does not make sense. Or the distance between residential and parking.

Overall this was clearly done in a way to maximize the space but the layout is a sloppy mess and this place will be frustrating for people who have to deal with it every day, except perhaps the folks working in the lab buildings.
Parking won’t be too bad for the retail. It mentions the Target will be built on top of 2 levels of parking. As Alpha mentions, the cinema is already built on top of 4 stories of parking and will be maintained. The parking in the far corner (placed along Hwy 380) is for the office tenants. I would imagine the residential will also have private lots underground or in the center of the large buildings.
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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

lake52 wrote:
storewanderer wrote: October 22nd, 2022, 1:51 am The residential units look terrible. Many will have few windows/limited daylight. Looks like very long hallways and difficulty getting in and out of the units as well. Will be really bad for folks with dogs.

The smaller lab buildings look nicer. Too bad they are too greedy to do similar small pod type buildings for the housing.

The large Target and large Cinema do not fit in with this project. Smaller retail/restaurants in front of AND between the two would seem to be a better fit. Residential seems like a terrible "buffer" to have between a Target and a Cinema.

Also the distance between Target/Cinema and parking does not make sense. Or the distance between residential and parking.

Overall this was clearly done in a way to maximize the space but the layout is a sloppy mess and this place will be frustrating for people who have to deal with it every day, except perhaps the folks working in the lab buildings.
Parking won’t be too bad for the retail. It mentions the Target will be built on top of 2 levels of parking. As Alpha mentions, the cinema is already built on top of 4 stories of parking and will be maintained. The parking in the far corner (placed along Hwy 380) is for the office tenants. I would imagine the residential will also have private lots underground or in the center of the large buildings.
I must note that this was planned before new state legislation abolished parking minimums near transit stations and high frequency transit hubs(bart and/or Caltrain aren't very far).By comparison Sacramento has two high frequency light rail lines but only a couple bus routes with 15 minute weekday service.

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Re: The Shops at Tanforan To Turn Into Tech Office Space

Post by storewanderer »

lake52 wrote: October 22nd, 2022, 9:03 am

Parking won’t be too bad for the retail. It mentions the Target will be built on top of 2 levels of parking. As Alpha mentions, the cinema is already built on top of 4 stories of parking and will be maintained. The parking in the far corner (placed along Hwy 380) is for the office tenants. I would imagine the residential will also have private lots underground or in the center of the large buildings.
I'm surprised they don't figure out a way to get rid of the cinema or replace it with a smaller one, and put more residential in that space. Target having parking below it, will work very well.
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