El Rancho Inn faces redevelopment: Plans submitted to turn Millbrae landmark into mixed-use project

Though plans are still in their formative stages, the initial proposal aims to rebuild the existing hotel housing 220 rooms spread across three floors into a residential development offering 316 apartments, plus 168 hotel rooms and 6,000 square feet for retail uses.

The project, expected to break ground in late 2019 under approval by city officials, would offer benefits such as significant reinvestment in a piece of underutilized property, economic stimulus, high quality housing and commercial businesses close to public transit and a variety of other perks, according to the developer’s application.

The apartments are proposed to span between studios and three-bedroom units ranging from 550 square feet to 1,250 square feet, according to the proposal. The hotel would spread its rooms across five stories surrounding a parking garage. A lobby, leasing area, fitness center, swimming pool, spa, outdoor barbecue and dining area plus fire pit would be included in the development too.

Though the plans indicate architectural style of the new development would pay respects to the features of the historic inn, there is no mention of an interest or intent to preserve the historic characteristics, such as the Terrace Café, which had gained recognition as home to the world’s largest swimming pool window.

The café, also previously known as the Dolphin Room and Mermaid Room, was featured in television commercials shown during the Super Bowl.

“With prominent frontage on El Camino Real, the project architectural language takes on a modern interpretation of the traditional mission style architecture to both pay homage to existing structure and to differentiate from the surrounding area’s architecture,” according to the plans.

Tom Dawdy, a historian with the Millbrae Historical Society, said he hoped some of the more famous characteristics of the inn would be preserved.

“That is everyone’s concern in Millbrae,” he said. “Unfortunately losing this piece of history. Especially the Terrace Café that was famous with the swimming pool. But the El Rancho itself has a lot of history. It has a lot of memories for everyone.”

He acknowledged though he considered the preservation to likely be a long shot.

“Everyone asks ‘can you save it?’ But I don’t think so,” he said.

He said a compromise might be donating some of the inn’s most classic characteristics to the historical society.

“If there is something to preserve, hopefully we could do it at the museum,” he said. “But we will take that as time goes.”

The project must go through the public vetting process before it is approved. The project is only a mile north on El Camino Real of the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit and Caltrain station, where 400,000 square feet of office space, about 79,000 square feet of retail space and more than 800 residential units split between two projects have been proposed.

Requests for comment on this article from a spokesman for Anton Development Company as well as hotel management were not returned.

Dawdy, though dismayed the site could ultimately be entirely overhauled, acknowledged the proposal stands to be the most recent instance of a Peninsula landmark forever changing due to redevelopment.

“I’m sad about it,” he said. “But I guess that is the way things go.”

austin@smdailyjournal.com

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