Bayfair Center in San Leandro is a former enclosed regional mall that is being repositioned as a mixed-use retail, power-center, and R&D campus at the East 14th Street and I-880 corridor. Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed, removing the traditional department store anchors. Target, Ulta Beauty, Old Navy, and other surviving retail uses continue to serve the San Leandro, Castro Valley, and Ashland residential catchment, but the property’s strategic direction is no longer defined by enclosed regional mall leasing. Colliers arranged $33 million in financing for the Bayfair redevelopment, confirming institutional commitment to the transition.
The site’s value is now tied to its redevelopment thesis: owners are pursuing a transition toward flexible R&D, production, and innovation-oriented space, while retaining the retail functions that serve the surrounding mid-Alameda County household base. The San Leandro BART station and the I-880 corridor access give the property a transit and vehicle-access profile that supports mixed-use repositioning rather than a pure mall recovery strategy.
For expansion teams, Bayfair should be evaluated as a redevelopment-format retail node rather than a conventional regional mall. Retail operators should assess adjacency to Target and the remaining traffic generators, while non-retail users should evaluate the site’s emerging role as a transit-oriented R&D and production campus consistent with the broader East Bay life science and innovation real estate thesis.
