Millbrae Serra Station: A place in the sun

The importance of hard work, community service and taking care of others was instilled in me by my immigrant parents. In the 1920s, they came to the United States from Italy to find their American Dream. In 1935, they borrowed money to buy a foreclosed house on Serra Avenue and settled in Millbrae. They open a convalescent home to care for my special needs brother and assist other patients who needed a safe home and care. Three generations of my family and our committed staff operated Millbrae Serra Convalescent Hospital with an unblemished mission of respect, care and integrity 24/7 for more than 75 years.

In 1999, we opened the Magnolia of Millbrae to offer care for up to 185 seniors, many from Millbrae, in an open, social, supportive environment. Our 125 full- and part-time, dedicated staff continue our family’s mission of care and make us one of Millbrae’s top employers.

Our family now proposes to turn the land under the vacant convalescent home on Serra Avenue and the old lumber yard into a 21st-century, mixed-use project that provides new homes, offices and retail immediately next to the Millbrae BART, Caltrain and SamTrans Transit Center, the biggest multi-modal station west of the Mississippi. Named Millbrae Serra Station, it’s a family legacy for Millbrae’s future located on land owned by the Muzzi family for more than 80 years.

After more than 100 years and 20 years of planning, Millbrae’s future will spring from the site of the old train station depot. Our community needs to embrace the future and implement the vision of Millbrae’s Station Area Specific Plan to create affordable homes for the current and next generation of workers, young families and seniors. We must create exciting commercial opportunities next to the Transit Center to attract new companies that create good jobs. This project will revitalize an underused asset and enhance our city’s tax base by paying millions annually in new taxes and fees to Millbrae’s general fund and our local school districts.

The Millbrae Serra Station project will offer a new identity to the 116-acre station area and much needed new housing and good jobs steps away from transit options so people don’t have to drive. Of the housing, 15 percent of the units will be reserved on-site for low and moderate income residents — people like health care workers, teachers, grocery clerks and seniors. Its Class A office space will attract technology tenants that take transit to work instead of driving; and create new customers for Millbrae’s downtown and El Camino Real restaurants and businesses.

The best way to protect the Millbrae’s existing neighborhoods, invigorate its downtown, sustainably expand its tax base and preserve for the future the quality of life we cherish in our community is to build along the El Camino Real and especially next to the Millbrae Transit Station. The time to build in this new “place in the sun” is now. I ask that you urge the Millbrae City Council to support its Millbrae Station Are Plan and this exciting project on Tuesday night.

Vincent Muzzi was born and raised in Millbrae and manages the family’s business interests which include operating the Magnolia of Millbrae. Learn more at millbraeserrastation.com.