Foster City planners review Gilead campus expansion; staff schedules environmental study session

Foster City — The Planning Commission on Feb. 5 reviewed staff responses and applicant materials for the proposed Gilead Campus Expansion on Chess Drive and Hatch Drive, with staff and the applicant outlining project phasing, employee estimates and the environmental studies the commission requested.

Senior Planner Myra Blanco told commissioners the project site covers roughly 11.9 acres and would be developed in two phases: Phase 1 would demolish eight existing commercial office buildings and construct an approximately 174,785‑square‑foot, two‑story lab building with surface parking; Phase 2 would remove the remaining four buildings and could add up to about 600,000 square feet of R&D uses and a multi‑story parking garage, yielding as much as about 800,000 square feet at full build‑out. "Phase 1 would generate about 150 employees, and at full build‑out we estimate roughly 820 employees," Blanco said.

Why it matters: Commissioners pressed staff and the applicant for clearer data on traffic, trip generation and the environmental footprint of lab versus office uses. Staff said R&D typically has lower employee density than traditional high‑density office space and that project‑specific traffic and fiscal impact analyses, including a level‑of‑service study, are under review. "These will be addressed at study session 3," Blanco said, noting the next session will include the environmental assessment, air quality analysis and site‑specific hazardous‑materials evaluation.

Applicant and design team: John Klein, project manager for the Chess facility, described Phase 1 as a two‑story, roughly 174–180,000‑square‑foot building that the team expects to meet city water‑neutrality requirements and global sustainability guidelines. "We're targeting LEED Gold and it will be an all‑electric facility," Klein said. Architect Niall Malcolmson (DGA Architects) presented a preferred layout (Option 4) that places a two‑story Phase‑1 lab in the center, two multi‑story Phase‑2 buildings to the east (9 stories) and west (8 stories) and a 7‑level garage, and showed massing comparisons to South San Francisco projects while proposing architectural screening for the garage.

Public safety and mitigation: Staff said the environmental assessment will include an air‑quality section and a Hazards and Hazardous Materials section tied to on‑site, phase‑specific assessments. As a proposed condition of approval, staff said the applicant would be required to submit a Hazardous Materials Business Plan. Staff also noted that demolition under Phase 1 would follow mitigation measures from the previously certified EIR and that Phase‑2 demolition would be subject to applicable Air District standards.

Public comment and concerns: Evan Adams, representing the Historical Society, urged the commission to preserve attention to the waterfront and pedestrian connections removed from earlier site plans and warned commissioners to examine fire access and column layouts in lab buildings based on personal experience with a lab fire. "When you're looking at the fire access, make sure you're looking at where those columns in the buildings might be," Adams said.

What happens next: Commissioners generally thanked the applicant for outreach and site tours and said many questions were clarified, but they asked staff to bring detailed environmental documents (VMT analysis, level‑of‑service, hazard evaluations) to Study Session 3. Staff said that session will be a comprehensive review of the environmental analysis and then the project would be scheduled for a public hearing following that analysis.

Action taken: The meeting did not include a decision on the Gilead project; commissioners approved procedural items earlier in the agenda (consent calendar and an agenda order change) by roll call.