Former Nairobi Shopping Center Site Bought by Largest East Palo Alto Residential Property Owner

Sand Hill Property Company, the largest residential property owner in East Palo Alto, bought the approximately six-acre property at 1675 Bay Road, formerly occupied by the Nairobi Shopping Center and a site that has been a community eye sore for years.

Sand Hill Properties sponsored a community meeting February 11 which was attended by approximately eighty members of the public and Sand Hill Property Company staff.

Also attending were two council members, two Sanitary District Directors, and at least one member of the Ravenswood City School District Board.

The meeting, according to Sand Hill Property Company officials, was intended to solicit public input on the future of the site known in city documents as the “Four Corner’s” site.

Sand Hill Property came into East Palo Alto real estate in 2016 when it purchased through its subsidiary company, Woodside Communities, the problem-ridden properties formerly held by the defunct and bankrupt Page Mill Properties. The 1800-unit purchase included both apartment buildings and single-family residential units.

Sand Hill Property Company was founded in 1988 by Peter and Susanna Pau as a real estate investment and development company. Mr. Pau was born in Shanghai, China and raised in Hong Kong. Ms. Pau was born and raised in Hong Kong. Peter and Susanna have lived in the Silicon Valley area for the last 30 years.

Sand Hill Property Company prides itself as a local, peninsula-based familyowned company.

The former Nairobi Village Shopping Center site was previously owned by the Green Valley Corporation, a company associated with developer Barry Swenson. Sand Hill Property bought the company under a new Sand Hill Properties subsidiary, Four Corners EPA Property LLC.

Sand Hill has remained silent about the price at which the property was bought but local real estate companies have estimated that it was $42 million.

The Nairobi Village Shopping Center was built in 1957 and once included Littleman’s Market among other stores. The Palo Alto Cooperative Market also occupied the space before the center shut down. By 1981, most buildings had been destroyed and only a liquor store that was a community source of shame and embarrassment and an eyesore remained. The former shopping center was finally torn down in 1989.

Attendees at the community meeting had an opportunity to provide information about the history of the property as well as to indicate what kinds of uses the facility should have.

One old-time resident who now lives six months in East Palo Alto and six months in Alabama told El Ravenswood that when he came to East Palo Alto in the late sixties, there was a nightclub in the “Four Corners” called Check Mate.

“The club showcased some of the best musical groups. I saw Tina Turner, the Whispers and Johnnie Taylor at the venue,” he said.

Sand Hill Property Company officials indicated that they would be abiding with the two planning documents that included the Four Corners: the Ravenswood Four Corners Specific Plan and the updated City of East Palo Alto General PlanVista 2035.

The East Palo Alto City Council began discussing the Four Corners Project as early as 1994. Then Mayor Sharifa Wilson and Vice Mayor Bill Vines, according to media reports, both saw the site as the next significant project after the approval of the now existing Ravenswood Retail Center.

The next community meeting will be in March 2020. Former Nairobi Shopping Center Site Bought by Largest East Palo Alto Residential Property Owner