Plans have been approved for 800 Oak Grove Avenue in Menlo Park, San Mateo County. The proposal includes a new six-story residential building alongside a remodeled bank and two-story offices. Menlo Park-based Prince Street Partners is responsible for the development.
1221 Crane Street vertical elevation, illustration via Prince Street Partners
800 Oak Grove and 1221 Crane Street site map, illustration via Prince Street Partners
The site is currently occupied by a vacant two-story, 15,770-square-foot Comerica Bank. The renovations would gut the interiors to create two open-concept floor plans and add a rooftop deck. The bank space would become a non-medical office building.
The roughly 75-foot-tall apartment building is expected to yield approximately 46,420 square feet. Apartment sizes will vary slightly, with 12 two-bedroom units, 2 three-bedroom units, and a four-bedroom penthouse unit. One of the apartments will be deed-restricted as affordable housing. Parking will include 41 spaces in a ground-floor garage, 11 fewer than under current conditions.
800 Oak Grove commercial rooftop deck, illustration via Prince Street Partners
800 Oak Grove, image via Google Street View
Prince Street Partners and Pacific Peninsula Group are listed as jointly overseeing the project’s architecture. Illustrations show that both buildings will feature a similar exterior treatment. Facade materials will include limestone tiles, stucco, and plaster.
The 0.75-acre property is located at the corner of Oak Grove Avenue and Crane Street. Future residents will be a block away from the retail-lined Santa Cruz Avenue, and less than ten minutes from the Menlo Park Caltrain station on foot.
The estimated cost and timeline for construction have yet to be shared.
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If ever needing an example of a depressing downtown, look no further than Menlo Park.
Penzeys is the best, but when I go and it’s not a farmer’s market day, downtown is a ghost town. How that Draeger’s remains open, I’ve no idea. San Mateo’s location was consistently busy and still couldn’t cut it.
Upzoning the parking lots around downtown will be an uphill battle, especially given what’s on the ballot. Little projects like this all help push the needle.
I dunno. I think downtown Menlo Park is pretty charming. Nice weather, street trees, cute seventies street furniture and signage, and some okay restaurants. I also really like the hardware store and the toy store – not many of those around anymore. Not much of architectural value, but I think you will find it fairly busy most days – especially around lunchtime.
Fun fact: downtown Menlo Park used to be along El Camino Real, but after it was widened to six lanes in the 1940s, the City created a masterplan for Santa Cruz Avenue, which had previously been mostly residential, to make it into a new downtown. The “parking plazas” that bracket the commercial buildings were planned to compete with shopping malls, which were wiping the floor with other Peninsula downtowns during the 1950s and 1960s. So, in effect, Menlo Park built a new downtown from scratch that was capable of competing with the shopping malls/strip centers.
I agree that most of the parking plazas need to go, but you’ve got to keep some parking – presumably in the ground floors of the new buildings? I am a Caltrain rider, and that is how I always get to Menlo Park, but most Peninsula people only drive, and if they can’t get their latte easily, they will go elsewhere and many of those downtown businesses will go out of business.
P.S., Why do you hate California so much? Is there anything about this place that you like at all? It must be tough hating everything all the time.
You’re too scummy for Bakersfield.
Hey, downtown Bako has come a long way. You should visit. Don’t miss Trout’s in Oildale.
At a 17% downtown retail vacancy rate, while peer cities are:
– 4% in San Mateo
– 2% in Redwood City
– 6% in Mountain View
– 5% in Los Gatos
– 10% in Burlingame
– 6% in South San Francisco
And all these cities are considerably less of a parking lot than space for people; sure, defend the downtown that is 42% land wasted as an urban heat island.
I did some VERY rough math that doesn’t capture the full picture of what downtown Menlo Park is. El Camino to Dragaers between Menlo and Oak Grove. 29.47 acres of land gets split 57% for businesses and 42% for cars. At a ratio like that for a San Francisco (2,500 SQFT on the average smaller extreme) 1,050 SQFT must be kept as driveway, with no patio or garden space included.
So yeah, I hate rents for families well above $5,000/mo when we just burn underutilized land. On the VERY rough math of maintenance, $0.5 per SQFT per year and $2.40 per SQFT for landscaping, these parking lots cost everyone easily $1.5 million a year. Easily 2% of the city’s $90 million budget goes to asphalt and curb cuts.
Bruh, I just said that I think the parking plazas in downtown MP should be developed. What was fine for Menlo Park in 1950 isn’t necessarily what is needed in 2026. Just saying that it might just be a good idea to include some underground, or street-level parking in the new buildings. As much as you and I may not like it, 95 percent of the people in this country never take transit. You don’t want to kill of Draeger’s do you?
Originally stated a downtown felt like a ghost town, never said Menlo Park was bad, and you equate a bit of math and a small novel about your feelings as me hating CA?
Yeah, you’re the one that needs to get a grip.