After retail failures, Station Park Green pivots to office

“The residential community has been a real success. We’ve had over 95% occupancy throughout the history of the project,” said Chris Kober, vice president of redevelopment at Essex Property Trust, owner of the development. “The retail, by contrast, has not succeeded. We've got 10 to 11 retail spaces, and only three of them have ever even had a tenant in these seven years, and all three of those have shut operations and left before their leases were even up.”

The City Council approved changing its agreement with the owner, which would allow Essex to allocate up to 35,000 square feet of office space — up from the original 15,000 maximum — and reduce the minimum allowed retail space to 3,000 square feet, down from 25,000. 

Kober said Essex, currently based in San Mateo, plans to occupy some of the ground floor space.

“We will still keep some well-located retail spaces. It is our hope that by placing those along the Concar passageway, that it will be the most used and likely to succeed,” Kober said. “The rest of the office space will be our new corporate office.”

The council unanimously approved the changes. Councilmember Danielle Cwirko-Godycki said she hoped more economic vibrancy could start heading to that part of the city. While there is a proposed development nearby that would construct nearly 850 housing units and 3,100 square feet of commercial space, it’ll likely be years until the project is built out. 

“There are actually a lot of workers in that area,” Cwirko-Godycki said. “When I think about why some of these retailers have failed, I don't know that people are really aware that anything is around there, other than the Trader Joe’s. As we think about our economic development plan, there is an opportunity for us to really think about how we drive traffic and general awareness to that whole area until the Concar project is there.”