Mecha Ventures has proposed a new 14-story luxury high-rise in downtown San Mateo. According to the developer, the building is specifically designed to appeal to retirees and empty nesters who are looking to downsize, but who want to stay in San Mateo. Designed by Arc Tec, the building will include hotel-style amenities such as a spa, gym, golf simulator, and indoor movie theater.
The main marketing campaign for the building cites the starting cost of the units. With prices ranging from $3,000-$5,000 per month, Mecha argues that rent would be cheaper than many people’s property tax in San Mateo, which can run as high as 3,700 per month, according to Zillow.
While not true affordable housing, this building will be more accessible to middle to upper-middle-income residents looking to cut expenses. The development’s close proximity to local shops and restaurants, along with the nearby Caltrain station reduce the need to drive or own multiple vehicles, and the building’s rates are substantially lower than the average combined mortgage and tax payment for a home in San Mateo.
1 East 4th Ave Building Rendering, image by Arc Tech
The development is being called “4th and El Camino,” and it will have 236 units, subdivided into 80 studios, 136 one-bedrooms, and 20 two-bedrooms, built above 108,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. This high-density project comes in the wake of Measure T’s passage last fall, approving the raising of certain height and density restrictions in the area around the Caltrain station.
The recent renderings of the building’s facade depict a gray and white tower, with inset corner balconies and top-story floor-to-ceiling windows. The design will be replacing a row of single-story, beige stucco retail shops. A timeline for the demolition and subsequent building construction has not yet been solidified.
1 East 4th Ave, Building Rendering, image via Mecha Ventures
1 East 4th Ave Current Conditions, image via Google Street View
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Beefy building! Hope it gets built.
Love it – but won’t get built in this cycle – maybe the next boom.
A timeline is undoubtedly quite a ways away, but I hope the existing businesses can find a nearby alternative location. The frame shop is a quality store, and the banks constantly flow with foot traffic.
This chunk of town could use some vibrancy. The dull colored stores aren’t doing much. The modernist offices across the way add little to the pedestrian experience. My only notes walking along this stretch of El Camino is noticing the grossness of the hot pavement from lack of trees, biking this chunk of town sucks, the buses got it rough here, and how does one leave prime park space to stare at parking infrastructure?
The new tower has a solid shot of doing some solid improvements to this intersection and block.
Oop I don’t think they’re posting comments that think this is a bad idea lol
I work at that frame store. I’m leaving another comment in case my first one doesn’t get approved-
Explain to me how this helps San Mateo. There are more luxury apartment buildings here than I can count.
Are people like me worth nothing? I can’t even afford to live in the city that I work in. I serve the people of San Mateo and I get nothing for it, not even a place to live.
We have apartments for the rich. We have expensive gyms. We have a movie theater.
Please just let us have a community. This is telling us that if you don’t have money, you do not get to live in our city. And I’ll lose my job. I don’t deserve that, none of my coworkers do. We serve this city.
Seems like a good location for a development of this type and size. The downtowns of all of the Peninsula cities are appropriate locations for this type of development. Upzone ECR and put in BRT from SF to SJ and you’ll be golden.
What about parking? Where’s the parking? Why such a desire to cram so much high density housing into San Mateo? Traffic is so bad now, why make it worse?
It’s valid to have concerns, but keep in mind: the developer’s design is based on market research. Yes, it aims to be the most profitable, but it’s also tailored to actual market demand. I don’t know if this is the case here, but a car-light project will attract car-light residents. I’ve lived without a car in downtown San Mateo and found it to be a great, walkable place with a lot going on.
When it comes to building height, I’ve read that 5 to 8 stories is the sweet spot for a low-maintenance, energy-efficient, transit and local business supporting density. Low-rise developments tend to keep people connected; residents are more likely to step out, run errands, and engage with the neighborhood than they are in high-rise towers with parking (especially high amenity ones).
Smart, human-scale development builds livable communities.
It often feels like the only people who frequent this page are mostly socioeconomically secure cis men—many of whom don’t seem to have any real stake in the communities they’re so eager to transform.
I used to see this site as a valuable, slightly bot-ish, resource. But more and more, it’s starting to feel like Astroturf dressed up as local, grassroots enthusiasm.
And before the comments roll in with, “YIMBY ____ was never meant to be grassroots!”—you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to claim community-mindedness, you need to show some concern for the potential downsides too. Ignoring those impacts entirely is, frankly, inhumane.
We’ve reached a point where even longtime YIMBYs like myself are getting disillusioned by the absence of real, spirited debate. It’s as if dissent can’t be tolerated—only an endless chant of “build baby, build.”
I still believe in the core principles of the movement. But for it to be sustainable and truly community-oriented, we need to make room for healthy, inclusive discussion. Here’s hoping we find our way back to that.
Architects need to go back to school. What even is this design trying to say? I imagine there’d be much better chances of getting the community to side favorably if these projects didn’t look like a mess.