A wave of new luxury apartments are coming online in the Peninsula in cities that want to energize their downtowns and meet demand for housing, such as Redwood City, San Mateo, and Foster City. Redwood City officials spent years devising a plan to make the downtown more walkable and urban. First came retail and entertainment. Now, it’s housing. The first residents are moving into Township Apartments on Main Street, developed by Sares Regis. The project is attracting young, single techies and people moving out of single-family homes. “People do want options where they work on the Peninsula and Silicon Valley,” Jeff Smith, vice president at Sares Regis Group of Northern California, told the SF Business Times. “They don’t want to spend an hour on a bus commuting from San Francisco.”
Bankers are betting on apartments. JPMorgan, for instance, is financing new apartments, not condos. “We think the attributes supporting apartment rentals are very compelling, particularly in dense urban markets with proximity to good jobs,” Chris DeSavino, a JPMorgan commercial real estate banking exec, told The Registry.
Multifamily rents in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area have grown 50% faster than the US average. Multifamily housing stock is playing catch up to single family residences. 1000 units are under planned for downtown Redwood City. An apartment project by Facebook West will come before the Menlo Park Plan Commission in May, a development proposed for the high-density zone in eastern Menlo Park.
Sares Regis is bullish on the Peninsula – the geography in the middle of it all. It’s investing broadly in amenities, banking on their appeal to the professional population that is leaving San Francisco. “With pricing where it is both on the for-sale side and for-rent side, a brand new apartment, even if it costs $3,000 or $4,000 a month, is a very attractive option if it gets a young family into a great school district,” Hudacek said, as reported in The Registry.
Photo Credit: Township Luxury Apartments
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