Tanforan Shopping Mall - Last Gasp

No spacing problem here.

In 2018 the decline of retail and the growing homelessness in San Bruno were warning signs for the Tanforan Mall.

The coronavirus lockdown was the death blow, and in November, 2020 the property was acquired by Alexandria Real Estate Equities for an eventual tear-down and conversion to a biotech campus / housing development.

But it would be a slow death, with designs and permits requiring years to process. Alexandria Real Estate Equities was in no hurry to buy out the leases, so tenants were running out their contracts.

In 2012 the Food Court bustled.

It was my first visit to the shopping center in four years. It was nearly empty. The once-bustling Food Court had a few diners, quietly picking at their food. Starbucks, Jollibee, and Burger King were already gone, while Chipotle, the movie theater, and Target were hanging on.

I ordered a teriyaki chicken lunch from Sarku, Japan, for old times sake. It was as good as I remembered but cost $3 more. Well, they have to make ends meet during the next year or two until construction begins.

The Tanforan Mall has been the site of a Peninsula race track, an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, and a shopping center. The recent 200-bp spike in interest rates and migration of people and business out of the Bay Area makes the biotech campus / residential housing plan by Alexandria Real Estate anything but a sure-fire moneymaker.

I wish them well.