Emerson Collective outlines 297-unit Demeter housing and Bayfront Park concept

Emerson Collective presented a preliminary concept for 391 Demeter, proposing 297 housing units, ground-floor community uses and a Bayfront Park as phase 1 of a larger waterfront-area vision. The presentation was framed as a pre-application review to gather Planning Commission feedback; staff consultant Christopher Dalkumos said the session would not result in approvals and that the commission's comments would be summarized in a letter to the applicant.

"Tonight, this is an outline of the presentation," Christopher Dalkumos said, describing the project's evolution since a 2020 conceptual submittal and noting the project's primary objective is housing. Mia Bernardino of Emerson Collective said the organization began work in East Palo Alto with College Track and that the proposed phase springs from community priorities for housing and open space: "We saw again that housing and open space were top priorities," she said. Architect Jen Soborai Sanin described the site approach: three smaller residential buildings with tuck-under parking and amenity structures, a green buffer to University Village, and separation between buildings intended to reduce scale and wind effects.

Commissioners focused questions on access, parking and how retail would activate the public realm. The architect said vehicular access would be from Demeter and that Purdue and Stevens would prioritize pedestrians and bicycles; the team reported 336 surface stalls, 124 interim stalls, and 95 tuck-under stalls, with roughly 10 public spaces. Veronica Rivera, the open-space designer, said the team is shifting language from "waterfront" to "Bayfront Park" to reflect the site's bayfront-adjacent wetlands and stressed programming derived from community input, including basketball courts, flexible lawns and gardens.

The commission and the public expressed concerns about cumulative traffic and how retail and public spaces would be placed to encourage local activation. Staff said the RBD specific plan environmental review will consider existing and pending projects and that a project-level environmental analysis, including traffic, will be required when a formal application is filed. The presentation closed with staff and the applicant thanking commissioners for detailed feedback the team will incorporate in follow-up materials to the commission and, later, to the City Council.