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Presidio Bay Ventures is proposing a major redevelopment of the former U.S. Geological Survey campus in Menlo Park that would replace office and laboratory buildings with hundreds of homes, new offices, retail and publicly accessible open space.
Presidio Bay Ventures submitted an initial application on Jan. 30 to comprehensively redevelop the mostly vacated Western Region Branch campus of the USGS after its operations moved to Moffett Field in Mountain View. Presidio Bay purchased the roughly 41-acre campus at 345 Middlefield Road in 2025 for $130 million
It is not Presidio Bay’s first mixed-use development in Menlo Park: the San Francisco-based firm built Springline on El Camino Real in 2020, which includes 183 apartments, two 100,000-square-foot office buildings, and a two-level underground parking garage. Its retail and restaurant spaces are home to eateries like Che Fico, Burma Love and Andytown Coffee, among others. Presidio Bay also recently submitted a proposal to construct below market rate housing on several city-owned parking lots in downtown Menlo Park.
The proposal for the USGS campus calls for the demolition of approximately 253,000 square feet of existing office and lab space across 16 buildings. In their place, the developer is planning a mixed-use project anchored by housing and office development, along with neighborhood-serving amenities.
The project calls for 670 residential units spread across three buildings that are six to seven stories tall. Of those, 101 units would be designated as below market rate housing. The plan also includes about 740,000 square feet of office space, made up of roughly 320,000 square feet of new office development by expanding one office building and constructing three others.
Presidio Bay said it would build 2,639 parking spaces but will have a shared parking strategy and transportation plan to avoid impacting the city. Of those, 1,221 spaces will be in an underground garage, 826 will be in a “reserve parking garage,” and 582 spaces will be shared between above-ground garages in two residential buildings. There will also be 10 short-term spaces near a new childcare center.
A consultant for Presidio Bay floated offering subsidized transit passes for the site’s employees and financial incentives to use alternative transportation methods or carpool, among others.
Open space is another major component of the proposal. Plans call for roughly 3 acres of publicly accessible open space, including a central lawn of approximately 1.5 acres referred to as the “redwood lawn,” as well as a neighborhood dog park. In addition, Presidio Bay proposed building 40,000 square feet of retail and amenities, including a 15,000-square-foot childcare center intended to serve both residents and the surrounding community.
Presidio Bay said it hopes GeoKids, which currently runs a preschool on the site, takes over the childcare facility.
Presidio Bay Ventures submitted the initial application for the project on Jan. 30. The proposal remains in the early stages of the city’s review process, and any final project would require approval by city advisory bodies and the Menlo Park City Council following environmental review and public hearings, according to the city.
Presidio Bay has already hosted several community meetings and met with city officials.
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This proposal is for another mixed use developments, so not just housing. I don’t see any information on whether the proposed office and retail space would create more jobs than the proposed housing could support. That is important since Menlo Park is already struggling to meet state-mandated increases in housing to address the current imbalance.