A 55-year-old California mall is headed for the wrecking ball as a developer moves to replace most of the 44-acre site with apartments, lab space, and a possible hotel.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities intends to tear down much of The Shops at Tanforan in San Bruno and rebuild the property as a transit-oriented mixed-use neighborhood roughly 10 miles south of San Francisco.
The U.S. Sun reported that demolition and site work are expected to start next year, with the first phases of construction aimed at 2028 or 2029, after the city finishes a years-long environmental review.
The plan would put housing, modernized retail, and life-science space on land that no longer draws the shoppers it once did.
Tanforan declined over the years. Much of the interior retail sat empty or closed.
Sears, JCPenney, and Barnes & Noble all exited. Those departures stripped the center of its old draw and left a large Bay Area property underused.
The Pasadena-based developer bought the mall between 2021 and 2022 for more than $300 million. The deals came in three separate transactions that totaled $328 million, including $128 million for the Sears site, $105.25 million for the JCPenney site, and $95.2 million for the rest of the retail and restaurant complex.
That price tag bought a 44-acre problem with a second-life pitch: stop managing decline and rebuild the site around housing and jobs.
Not everything is slated for the bulldozer. Target will remain and get upgraded. The Century at Tanforan movie theater is set for a remodel.
Those pieces would sit inside a broader master plan. The base program calls for 1,014 housing units, about 112,000 square feet of modernized retail, around 724,000 square feet of life science laboratory and office space, and a 35,000-square-foot amenity building.
Two “flex zones” give the developer room to scale the project further.
One flex option adds another million square feet of life sciences and office space. The other adds 500 apartments, 100,000 square feet of retail, a 170-room tourist hotel, and another 450,000 square feet of lab and office space.
In plain terms, the hotel is on the table if city approvals and market conditions line up with that larger mix. The core bet is already clear: far fewer traditional storefronts, far more places to live and work.
San Bruno recently drafted the Final Environmental Report required under the California Environmental Quality Act, the state’s main environmental review law for major projects. City officials describe that report as the last chapter of a review process that has already taken years.
The city’s planning commission has scheduled a public hearing on the redevelopment for October 20. That session is the next formal checkpoint before demolition timing hardens.
No named city officials or Alexandria executives appear in the available reporting on the latest step. The paper trail that is public points to process, square footage, and purchase history rather than personality.
Even with the final environmental report in hand, shovels are not imminent for finished buildings. Officials expect demolition and site preparation next year. Vertical construction in the first phases is pegged to 2028 or 2029.
That gap matters for a region that talks constantly about housing supply. A dead mall can sit in review for years while unit counts remain lines on a site plan.
The project’s stated aim is a second life for a center that opened more than half a century ago and then lost its major anchors. Retail flight left the interior soft. The developer’s answer is to keep Target, refresh the theater, raze much of the rest, and stack apartments and lab space on the same land.
Whether the final mix lands closer to the base plan or one of the larger flex scenarios will turn on approvals, financing, and demand for life-science space south of San Francisco. The housing count already on the page is 1,014 units in the base program, with a path to 500 more under one flex option.
For nearby residents, the practical questions are traffic, design, and when empty parking fields stop looking like a stranded asset. For the city, the October hearing is the near-term test of how far the current plan moves without another long delay.
California cannot house its workforce with vacant big-box corridors and multi-year paperwork as the default pace. Turning a fading mall into apartments is the kind of land reuse that should have been routine long before the storefronts went dark.