The BayMeadows Urban Village
The Bay Meadows Urban Village is a community exemplar of what society strives for: a thoughtful mix of places to live, work, play, and access services. The weft of major rail, auto, and bicycle transit corridors, together with the weave of neighborhood streets and pedestrian passages, creates a fabric designed to enrich modern urban life.
As part of California’s largest transit-oriented development, Bay Meadows is a new mixed-use commercial destination along the Caltrain line in the heart of San Mateo. Built on the former site of the Bay Meadows horse track, the development features a pedestrian-friendly environment with ample parks and green spaces, sustainable office buildings, and a variety of housing types. To minimize the need for cars, the design establishes a framework of streets, bike paths, and walkways that provide convenient access to the Hillsdale Caltrain Station. The five single-block, mixed-use office buildings serve as the village’s economic engine.
Three already built mid-rise buildings, accompanied by two more under construction, will comprise over a million square feet of office and retail space with integrated, structured podium parking. Each floor plate offers 50-to-75,000 square feet of contiguous office space and high ceilings with full-height glazing to optimize daylight penetration. The exposed ceilings offer a striking, raw aesthetic while maximizing height and adaptability. Two corner buildings, yet to be constructed, expand the district and green space.
A central challenge of creating a mixed-use speculative development is to create an attractive built environment while being mindful of modest budgets. To achieve this result, the design team used a kit-of-parts approach that provides visual variety with construction economy. Each building consists of two wings highlighted by a palette of terra-cotta tiles which shift in hue and value as they move down the street, a consistent fenestration strategy of punched window and glazed planes rearranged from wing to wing, an exposed concrete structure, and cloaking podium parking behind and beneath. The orientation of the wings supports exterior public spaces along the street with entrances connecting to pedestrian paths within each block.
Each of the five Station buildings is designed for LEED Gold certification, with options for renewable energy that can elevate them to LEED Platinum. High-quality building materials support longevity and durability. Innovative glazing and mechanical systems ensure energy efficiency, user comfort, access to daylight, and flexibility.