The former Burlingame post office building has been eligible to be listed on a state or national historic register and the city agreed to oversee a preservation covenant to ensure character-defining elements.
The office component of the historic post office’s redevelopment would be the tallest building in downtown Burlingame, according to a proposal which raised the eyebrows of some city officials.
The Burlingame City Council substantially reviewed the new vision from Sares Regis to construct a sweeping commercial project at the landmark building during a meeting Monday, March 2.
The discussion marked the first time officials vetted specifics of the proposal at 220 Park Road since the new developer stepped in and shifted directions from a mixed-use residential project to one comprised entirely of office space over the former mail facility.
Councilmembers largely lauded the ambitious approach, while tempering some of their enthusiasm with concerns about setting a record height for buildings in the core shopping district.
“This is a huge project. This is very important. This will change the center of our town forever,” said Councilman Ricardo Ortiz, according to video of the meeting.
While no formal plans have been submitted, initial discussions suggest the tower of office space proposed to be set back behind the post office portion is slated to rise six stories to about 95 feet. On average, the building would be about 55 feet, as heights are distributed across shorter portions such as the mail facility, which is protected from redevelopment.
Currently, the tallest building in downtown Burlingame is the former Crocker National Bank building at 330 Primrose Road, which also rises six stories but only reaches 82 feet, said officials.
The former Burlingame post office building has been eligible to be listed on a state or national historic register and the city agreed to oversee a preservation covenant to ensure character-defining elements.
Daily Journal file photo
The post office project would spread about 140,000 square feet of office space through the building, planned to rise over a public plaza available for community gatherings. Officials ultimately envision an amenity similar to Courthouse Square in Redwood City.
To achieve the vision, city officials must allow for redevelopment of a surface parking lot which would require a loss of 70 parking spaces. In return, the office building is slated to include 280 parking spaces in an underground lot which will be available to the community on nights and weekends when the site isn’t occupied by workers.
For his part, Ortiz suggested he was comfortable with the tradeoff.
“I think we are creating a unique area for the city and to get there we will have to give up a few spaces and in return we get night and weekend spaces, which is wonderful,” he said.
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He balanced that perspective against reservations with the proposed size of the project.
“I remain concerned about the building height,” he said.
Councilwoman Donna Colson maintained a different position though, expressing relative comfort with the heights reached by the commercial tower with respect to preserving the post office portion.
The post office building has been eligible to be listed on a state or national historic register and the city agreed to oversee a preservation covenant to ensure character-defining elements of the building are maintained.
Colson also encouraged the builder to take on a comprehensive community outreach program with the intent of helping residents understand why certain portions of the project need to be so big.
Councilman Michael Brownrigg agreed, while calling on the builder to collaborate with officials on designing the project which could be a crown jewel of downtown.
“This has the potential to be a phenomenal project and a legacy,” he said. “So I have faith in you and hopefully you will work closely with the city.”
Mayor Emily Beach too said she was mostly comfortable with the design, and expressed enthusiasm for it to move forward.
“I think it is going to be a wonderful project,” she said.
Sorry - this might be viewed by SM Daily Journal as a multiple comment - they can feel free to remove my earlier one. But has the City of Burlingame ever proffered an historical sales tax analysis that concludes replacing brisk retail with office space delivers a financial benefit to the City (or more broadly the County)? Meaning, to the extent the new office buildings and lack of parking steer people to places like Stanford Shopping Center (which I hear from shopkeepers is a recent issue), and perhaps convert Burlingame retail into mostly lunch/dinner establishments for office workers, is there a net benefit to sales tax generation, considering that many corporations have such voluminous deductions against US Federal and CA State tax income for stock compensation deductions they pay little tax at these levels. So maybe there is some benefit to adding incremental office space from the payroll tax generation etc to the City/State. Have these impacts ever been part of the analysis? What about in San Mateo -- are we net benefiting from payroll tax and sales tax via food establishments, given the volume of companies that are able to reduce US Federal and CA State tax by way of stock comp. deductions (made appreciably higher from the recent years' stock price momentum)? Is there a packaged report on this? Or have we been historically better off (sales tax wise and generally) for school resources etc. when Burlingame was practically balanced brisk retail, with incentives for shoppers as the main draw (and eating secondary)?
The so called historic covenant was just made up by a past city council. Remove that and just use the core post office lobby interior and facade in a adaptive reuse. The rest of the post office, sorting room and offices block more underground parking and are not necessary for nearly everyone’s sensibility. Losing parking is a bad idea. The fantasy that everyone will bike down the dangerous El Camino or California to get downtown is ridiculous and a high percentage of downtown shoppers are not from Burlingame.
Why not just deem Burlingame circle the wagons for parking lot space to park Keep developing and bring in another monstrosity Oculus and place it in downtown parking? Good job!
Oh how the Council's attitudes change. More jobs, no complementary housing, and less parking! They were much more concerned about the affordable housing project a block away that they approved FIVE years ago but has not yet broken ground. This new project should also benefit commercial landlords in the area who will hike up their rents to downtown merchants.
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Sorry - this might be viewed by SM Daily Journal as a multiple comment - they can feel free to remove my earlier one. But has the City of Burlingame ever proffered an historical sales tax analysis that concludes replacing brisk retail with office space delivers a financial benefit to the City (or more broadly the County)? Meaning, to the extent the new office buildings and lack of parking steer people to places like Stanford Shopping Center (which I hear from shopkeepers is a recent issue), and perhaps convert Burlingame retail into mostly lunch/dinner establishments for office workers, is there a net benefit to sales tax generation, considering that many corporations have such voluminous deductions against US Federal and CA State tax income for stock compensation deductions they pay little tax at these levels. So maybe there is some benefit to adding incremental office space from the payroll tax generation etc to the City/State. Have these impacts ever been part of the analysis? What about in San Mateo -- are we net benefiting from payroll tax and sales tax via food establishments, given the volume of companies that are able to reduce US Federal and CA State tax by way of stock comp. deductions (made appreciably higher from the recent years' stock price momentum)? Is there a packaged report on this? Or have we been historically better off (sales tax wise and generally) for school resources etc. when Burlingame was practically balanced brisk retail, with incentives for shoppers as the main draw (and eating secondary)?
Mistake. -Class of '87
The so called historic covenant was just made up by a past city council. Remove that and just use the core post office lobby interior and facade in a adaptive reuse. The rest of the post office, sorting room and offices block more underground parking and are not necessary for nearly everyone’s sensibility. Losing parking is a bad idea. The fantasy that everyone will bike down the dangerous El Camino or California to get downtown is ridiculous and a high percentage of downtown shoppers are not from Burlingame.
Why not just deem Burlingame circle the wagons for parking lot space to park Keep developing and bring in another monstrosity Oculus and place it in downtown parking? Good job!
Oh how the Council's attitudes change. More jobs, no complementary housing, and less parking! They were much more concerned about the affordable housing project a block away that they approved FIVE years ago but has not yet broken ground. This new project should also benefit commercial landlords in the area who will hike up their rents to downtown merchants.
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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.