Reporter Janis Mara of the San Mateo Mercury Times has seen a trend I am also seeing by perusing B'game listings on Craigslist. Her front page piece titled "Burlingame becoming new tech hub" sort of ignores the fact that B'game was a tech hub once before--in the '80s. Back then Sprint and later, GTE Sprint, was headquartered here and was the largest employer in town and one of the largest in the county. A variety of suppliers to Sprint were also headquartered here. But no matter, it's still nice to see a new round of tech start-ups coming in. They note
"Burlingame has great restaurants and it's a good central location," said Michael Weir, vice president of marketing for DataStax, also at 270 East Lane. Weir said his firm liked the building because it was near the Caltrain station, a factor that others mentioned.
"I estimate that one-third of the employees of the companies in my building are taking the train," said Gary Cohn of BR Commercial, owner of 270 East Lane. Cohn got permission this month to convert 8,000 square feet of the building from industrial to office use.
Let's just hope we keep enough Caltrain service to keep commuters happy. If the B'way station reopened it would help workers going to Old Bayshore and Airport Blvd, too, but don't hold your breath.
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