San Mateo County continues its boom

On the way from the elevator to the conference I saw no small- or medium-sized offices. Instead there were a variety of work spaces, some large, some small, and some areas with comfortable chairs and tables. Definitely not the offices of old. Since most of the exterior walls were glass, there was a feeling of openness and light. It looked like an enjoyable place to work.

The campus totals 210,000 square feet and spans across two towers, each four stories high and connected by a sky bridge.

Here’s a description online of what the design team had in mind: “An understanding of Medallia’s culture of collaborating in open spaces, along with their rapidly increasing scale, led M Moser to start thinking of the Medallia workspace as a city, or ‘Offi(city).’ This inspired the design team to start thinking about how to create an ‘active void’ that connected across the office, just as cities use small pockets of space to create gathering areas through parks, plazas, and passages. To accomplish this, M Moser strategically placed enclosed meeting rooms so that the space between them would create secondary ‘rooms without walls’ that functioned as collaborative spaces, meeting rooms, and casual areas for quieter conversation and independent work.

“Medallia’s conference rooms and offices are all at various heights; acting as floating rooms, in different shapes and positions throughout the space. This creates a unique dynamic for employees walking through the space. It also establishes a buffer between the noisy inner corridor, and the outer layer of workstations which are located along the window line to take advantage of natural light. The collage of these open spaces, adjacent to larger meeting rooms, creates a visual layering where each person can stay connected to the work, activities, and social heartbeat of their coworkers. No prescriptive path leads through the space, a different way — a different path — can always be discovered ... .”

Medallia provides software-as-a-aervice, customer experience management and enterprise feedback management software as well as services to hospitality, retail, financial services, high-tech and business-to-business companies internationally. In addition to the San Mateo headquarters, the company has offices in Buenos Aires, London, Munich, Paris, Melbourne, New York City and Sydney.

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Rosanne Foust, CEO of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association, or SAMCEDA, reported that unemployment in San Mateo is the lowest of all counties in the state at 2.2 percent. There are 459,700 in our labor market and 450,000 of those are employed. This rate is considered full employment (Of course with all of the hiring signs around town, many of the unfilled jobs result from the cost of housing here). San Mateo is no longer a bedroom community but the headquarters for many 21st century companies, for those who focus on research and development and advanced manufacturing including 3D printing, consumer electronics and specialty food. There are 3 million square feet of commercial offices under construction. Right now there is an 8.77 percent vacancy rate. We can all remember when the vacancy rate was much higher and developers were turning to housing and away from commercial.

With all the good news comes persistent challenges. Plenty of jobs but not enough affordable housing. Too many employees driving long distances to work. Corporate shuttles and Caltrain are helping, but the jobs/housing imbalance remains a concern. The electrification of Caltrain is expected to help with more trains and faster schedules to make public transit even more attractive. And many of the new companies, like Medallia and SurveyMonkey, are locating in the transit corridor.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.