Monday, July 25, 2011

Tech - think Burlingame? Why not Pacifica, we have parking and a view


Discovery while shopping at Fresh and Easy, there is evidence that tech and other urban yuppies live on the coast.
 
From Mercury News/San Mateo Times 7/14/11. "Towns such as Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, in the heart of Silicon Valley, are traditionally associated with such firms, but Burlingame is drawing tech companies, too. John Ramey, the founder of isocket, said Burlingame's central location was a big advantage.  "I was in an apartment in Mountain View when we took our venture capital funding," said Ramey, whose company is an advertising marketplace designed to make it easier to buy and sell ads online.

"When it was time to set up a company, I intentionally wanted to come to this area. Burlingame and San Mateo have been growing because it's  a way to split the difference between  San Francisco and Silicon Valley," he said.  San Francisco is developing its own tech bubble and there is still a tech and social media boom in Silicon Valley, Ramey said. This has created a split culture between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, with some venture capitalists shutting down their Silicon Valley offices and moving to San Francisco. Burlingame is a compromise between the two locations, the difference between San Francisco and Silicon Valley," he said.  Isocket's building, at 270 East Lane, is home to other startups, too.

"Our primary need as a company is to grow and hire. Hiring is very difficult. By being in this mid-location, you have the widest circumference of hiring. When you are in San Francisco, you are limited to hiring people in The City. When you're in Palo Alto, you can only hire folks there. But Burlingame is 20 minutes from either city via Caltrain or car," Ramey said. "Burlingame has great restaurants and it's a good central location," said Michael Weir, vice president of marketing for DataStax, also at 270 East Lane. Weir said his firm liked the building because it was near the Caltrain station, a factor that others mentioned."  See the full article..

Posted by Kathy Meeh

9 comments:

Steve Sinai said...

We don't have adequate transportation to shuttle people from BART and Caltrain.

Also, as opposed to Pacifica, downtown Burlingame is actually nice and has lots of restaurants for the lunch crowd.

It's gotta' be retail in Pacifica.

Anonymous said...

Premier Outlet Mall. They are being built and they revitalize communities. What shopper wouldn't want to come spend a day doing the outlets here by the sea instead of Vacaville or Gilroy or Milpitas? Better outlets only, no dollar store junk. Market the hell out of it with packages from SF hotels, etc. And best of all, they visit, they shop and then they go home--no big drain on expensive city services. And they leave us with jobs in Pacifica, sales tax revenue, growth of adjacent businesses. Anyplace with Hiway 1 frontage would be perfect. This would bring this town to life.

Anonymous said...

Downtown Burlingame has Cal train stop 100 feet from Broadway. One day Bart will run down to downtown Burlingame and San Mateo

Paicifica has no class A or class B commerical to put a company. Maybe a company in the starting stage but once you get passed 20-30 employees why would you be isolated.

Why do you think all the tech companies are in Silicon Valley. Well, educated local work force to draw from. Why are the bio-tech companies in SSF, well, Bio-tech pretty much got started in SSF. I have heard people from Genentech have started over 100 companie, most are right around SSF.

You guys are comparing apples to elephants.

An outlet mall was proposed for Pedro Point and the developers where swiftly run out of town

Anonymous said...

LOL@outlet malls! If Peebles, Swenson, Bottoms et al thought they could make any money with outlet malls at the Rockaway Quarry, they would have built them. You people are big talkers with other people's money. Why not pass the hat around and do it yourselves if you think it is such a great idea.

And gee, I wonder why outlet stores are built in such remote areas as Vacaville and Gilroy? Couldn't have anything to do with the land being so much cheaper, could it?

big banker said...

All the big bankers money is tied up and being held for the proposed Pot Store In Pacifica.

Kathy Meeh said...

If this city is serious about tourism, a premium mall could be an important destination.

Anon (923), during the time Vreeland and DeJarnatt have been on city council, I know of some Pacificans with large land parcels that have been encouraged to donate their properties to "open space" and take the tax break. Bottoms owned the quarry when it was a quarry, and sold it for cheap to Peebles who had in mind to build a downtown village. Swenson might have built Palmetto, but Vreeland and DeJarnatt made sure that didn't happen. Same time period, Mori Point and across the highway Cattle Hill have become unproductive "open space".

Swenson has recently only looked at the quarry. There are other properties in this city, although the blighted quarry is an easy highway 1 exit, with a plan for improvement. The land is relatively cheap, but has a potential regulatory hassle, worsened as usual if city council does not support the project.

Vacaville and Gilroy, remote areas? These are smart cities, that have brought-in premium outlet malls destinations as part of their tax revenue generating economy. Following a demographic study, Pacifica could do the same.

Anonymous said...

Times have changed. Builders like Peebles, Swenson and such like those large-scale single fam residential pieces and that business is over for the decade here at minimum unless we want even bigger unsold housing inventory and even steeper declines in value--still declining and down 33% or so from the high mark. Worse in other parts of the state and that's the big reason prop tax revenue is way down and CA is broke. The climb back up will take a decade or more.
Not enough land or transit support for any kind of big scale business campus but plenty of space for an outlet mall. And our seaside location would add greatly to the appeal. Build it with other people's money? Keep that hat on sweetie, that's how things get built even in this new economy.

Anonymous said...

Mori Point and Cattle Hill are in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. That land should be developed. It's so unproductive.

Anonymous said...

Too late. Mori Point, Sweeney Ridge, Cattle Hill, Milagra all belong to the GGNRA. The decisions to give up that land doomed this town to dependant beggar status. We could barely scrape along in "good times" but these days there's nobody to beg from!