Nearly 50 years after Crestmoor High School closed its doors and almost a decade of back-and-forth negotiations, the sale of the 40-acre property owned by the San Mateo Union High School District to SummerHill Homes has been finalized.
The purchase and sale agreement of the former school site, located at 300 Piedmont Ave. in San Bruno, to the residential developers was initially approved in December 2021 and ultimately sold for $86,552,000. The district received a net amount of $82 million that will be directed toward capital improvement projects, Associate Superintendent Yancy Hawkins said.
“I just really want to celebrate the fact that the culmination of over 10 plus years of work by this board, by several superintendents and my predecessor, that on Feb. 6 the sale of the Crestmoor property closed,” Hawkins said to the Board of Trustees at the Feb. 13 meeting.
The sale of this property has been in the works for more than five years and was initially slated to be sold to developer J.R. Horton with a plan to build between 120 and 200 single-family homes. This deal fell through August 2021.
Superintendent Randall Booker spoke to the “foresight by the board that started this process” and the multifaceted benefit that comes from the sale.
The Crestmoor High School closed in 1980, and the most recent occupant of the site was the Peninsula Alternative High School which moved in 2019 when the school district expressed interest in selling.
“It’s pretty rare that a district can go through closing a school and come out unscathed, and yet here we are as a district,” Booker said. “There are so many benefits from this that are beyond our capital improvement projects that we’ll see.”
The property is currently zoned for low-density residential development, which permits 2.1 to 8 units per acre of land. The sale for residential development will not only bring housing to the area, but will generate more property tax revenue for the San Bruno School District, Booker said.
The development plan includes 155 single-family homes, with 24 sold at below market rate. Demolition is currently underway of the existing facility, and preparation for the construction of the first homes for sale will continue through this year. The first homes for sale are slated to be available early 2026.
“This is a hugely important project for the city because of the added housing, it’s creating a whole new neighborhood at the formerly unused site,” San Bruno Councilmember Tom Hamilton said.
Hamilton added that the city is pleased to preserve the sports fields and restore them for soccer clubs and public use.
“That was a long road,” board President Robert Griffin said. “I’m glad, I’m actually smiling. There were so many twists and turns, personnel changes, unforeseen circumstances … there were a lot of moving parts to get that accomplished and there’s not that many types of transactions that can happen these days.”
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.