Macy's at East Bay Mall to be Tech R&D Hub
San Leandro-based developer building 400K SF tech center at local shopping mall.
A Macy’s store that closed in March after anchoring San Leandro’s Bayfair Center shopping mall since 1957 is being converted into part of an R&D hub that a local developer is building.
San Leandro-based B3 investors is getting ready to convert the three-story Macy’s building into 260K SF of R&D space that will be part of Speedway at Bayfair, a 400K SF center for innovation featuring flexible studio, production and R&D space.
The Macy’s conversion will be the second phase of the tech center development, which recently completed a 140K SF, two-store building at Bayfair, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
B3 Investors and Hong Kong-based Gaw Capital Partners bought Bayfair Center in 2022 for $57M from an affiliate of Madison Marquette. The 42-acre regional mall, which included one main mall building and five outparcel buildings encompassing a total of 817K, is adjacent to a BART station.
Newmark, which represented the seller in the transaction, marketed the property as an opportunity to develop a mixed-use campus including life sciences space.
The name Speedway at Bayfair is a reference to the Oakland Speedway, which occupied the land before the mall was built.
The San Leandro City Council has rezoned the area surrounding the Bayfair BART station as part of its Transit-Oriented Development plan, which aims to develop a transit-oriented community hub with a mix of retail, housing and office space, including affordable housing.
In 2018, B3 developed Gate510, a 300K SF tech and biotech campus in San Leandro.
In January, Macy’s disclosed that it would close two of its oldest stores in the Bay Area, including the Bayfair outlet and a 700K SF flagship store in San Francisco’s Union Square, as part of a plan to shut 150 underperforming stores across the U.S.
Macy’s Union Square flagship is one of the retailer’s largest and oldest locations, anchoring the downtown San Francisco shopping district since it opened in 1929, when Macy’s was operating under the name O’Connor, Moffat & Co.