New Crestmoor sale is in works for San Mateo Union High School District

The purchase price of the 40-acre-property at 300 Piedmont Ave. in San Bruno is $85 million, according to the contract agreement linked on the district’s meeting agenda website. With those funds, the district intends on investing in affordable workforce housing for its employees at a site yet to be selected. 

“We know that the high cost of housing in the Bay Area impacts our ability to retain our highly qualified staff. The district is so pleased to seize this opportunity to generate the funding to provide housing for our staff, but also additional housing and property tax funds for the city of San Bruno and surrounding school districts,” board President Robert Griffin said in a press release. 

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.

The site was previously slated to be sold to developer J.R. Horton, which had planned to build between 120 and 200 single-family homes. That deal was estimated to be as much as $125 million but fell through earlier this year after the developer informed the city it no longer intended on moving forward with the purchase. 

At the time of that announcement, staff also shared they were already in talks with SummerHill Homes on a new agreement. Details on the new plans for the land have yet to be released but the property is zoned for single-family homes only. 

Per the city’s general plan, any deal would require at least 12 acres be left for recreation use in what would be privately owned but publicly available land — though this could be changed if the general plan were to be amended. 

An amendment reducing recreation space at the Crestmoor site, which includes soccer fields frequently used by the community, would likely require recreation space be added elsewhere in the city. 

Robert Freed, SummerHill Homes CEO, shared his excitement for working the city again in a press release. The Bay Area developer was behind the construction and sale of 185 single-family homes in the city’s Marisol and Merimont residential communities starting in the early 2000s until 2011.  

“SummerHill Homes prides itself in developing ‘Communities of Distinction,’” Freed said. “And we commit to working collaboratively with the San Bruno community on the development of this property.”

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