Drive past The Shops at Tanforan this month and you will notice another gap where a familiar sign used to be. Shirtique Pro Shop, the sports memorabilia store that has served San Bruno shoppers for more than three decades, is closing its doors at the end of September. It follows Barnes & Noble, which finished out its lease at Tanforan earlier this year as part of the same slow tenant exodus.
If you live in Aragon or anywhere else within walking distance of the mall, it is easy to read these closures as the beginning of the end. They are not. They are a different clock entirely from the one that actually determines when Tanforan changes, and confusing the two means either bracing for a demolition that is still more than a year out, or missing the one government meeting this fall that will actually decide what gets built.
Two Clocks, Not One
The first clock is tenant attrition. Stores close when leases end and owners decide not to renew, and that has been happening at Tanforan gradually for years, accelerating as the mall's 2021 redevelopment vision became public. This clock has no fixed schedule. It moves store by store, sign by sign, on whatever timeline each individual tenant's lease allows.
The second clock is entitlement, and it runs through San Bruno City Hall, not through individual leases. According to the city's own Tanforan for San Bruno project page, the Planning Commission and City Council are set to consider final adoption of new zoning, a subdivision map, the environmental impact report, and a development agreement this fall. Only after that vote passes does the second phase start: demolition and site preparation in 2027, followed by first-phase construction beginning in 2028 or 2029.
That means the storefronts disappearing right now are not evidence that bulldozers are coming next spring. They are evidence that a nearly decade-long entitlement process, which started when Alexandria Real Estate Equities bought the 44-acre site for roughly $300 million in 2021 and 2022, is finally reaching the vote that makes everything else possible.
The Timeline, As the City Has Actually Published It
| Phase | Window | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Entitlement | Fall 2026 | Planning Commission and City Council vote on final zoning, subdivision map, EIR, and development agreement |
| Demolition and prep | 2027 | Existing retail buildings come down; Target, Century Theaters, and the BART-adjacent buildings along Huntington Avenue stay open |
| Construction | 2028 to 2029 | First phases of new buildings begin |
This is not a guess pieced together from rumors. It is the sequence the city itself has published, and it puts real distance between what residents are watching happen right now and what actually gets built. If the fall vote passes on schedule, San Bruno is still roughly a year and a half from the first demolition crew and roughly three years from any new building opening.
What's Actually Coming Down, and What Isn't
The project site runs along El Camino Real to the west and Huntington Avenue to the east, bounded by Sneath Lane to the north and I-380 to the south. The draft environmental impact report filed with the state describes the scope in specific terms: about 785,489 square feet of existing retail demolished, replaced by somewhere between 111,950 and 211,950 square feet of new retail space, up to 1,514 multifamily housing units including 200 designated affordable, and as much as 1.7 million square feet of life science lab and office space. A 125,000 square foot, 170-room hotel is also part of the range under review.
Two buildings are explicitly carved out of the demolition plan. The Century at Tanforan Theater and the Target store, along with their attached parking structures, are staying. Peter Gilli, San Bruno's community development director, has been direct about why: the developer wants continuity for shoppers during a construction process that could stretch several years.
"The Target is going to be open throughout construction, so people can still come and buy all the essentials that they need. The movie theater is going to try to stay open as much as possible. There might be a short closure, but it's going to be retained as part of the project."
That is a meaningful detail if your weekly routine already includes a Target run or a Friday matinee at Century. It means the version of Tanforan you use for errands and movie nights is not on the same clock as the version that disappears in trade press headlines about a "dying mall."
The tenants that remain outside those two anchors include BJ's Restaurant and Planet Fitness, at least as of this month. Whether they stay through the entitlement vote and into demolition depends on their own lease terms, which is the tenant-attrition clock running independently of the city process.
Why This Fall's Vote Also Touches Your Commute
The Tanforan vote is not happening in isolation from the rest of San Bruno's planning conversation. On May 19, the Planning Commission and City Council held a special joint session covering several related items at once: an update on SB79, the state law that took effect July 1 and allows greater building height and density for housing within a half mile of BART and Caltrain stations, alongside the Elevate San Bruno strategic initiative on citywide land use and a separate discussion of downtown zoning.
Tanforan sits directly adjacent to the San Bruno BART station, which puts it squarely inside that half-mile radius. The density figures in the draft EIR, up to 1,514 housing units on a single 44-acre parcel, are easier to understand once you see them alongside a state law that was written specifically to encourage exactly that kind of build-out near transit. This is not a coincidence of timing. It is the same policy environment showing up in two different city agenda items in the same year.
What This Means If You Live Nearby
If you already live in Aragon or elsewhere near Tanforan, here is the practical version of all of this:
- The storefronts closing this month, including Shirtique at the end of September, are lease expirations, not the start of demolition
- Nothing gets torn down before the entitlement vote this fall actually passes
- Target and Century Theaters are planned to stay open through construction, so your routine there does not need to change yet
- If the fall vote goes as scheduled, demolition starts in 2027 and the first new buildings do not open before 2028 at the earliest
- Regular San Bruno City Council meetings are held at the Recreation and Aquatic Center at 251 City Park Way and are streamed live, so the fall vote itself will be a public, watchable process
None of this requires action from a resident today. It requires calibration. The mall you have watched empty out over the past year is not the same event as the mall that eventually gets rebuilt, and the fall entitlement vote is the actual hinge between the two.
The Longer View
Malls across the country have gone through this exact sequence, tenant departures stretching for years before a final vote unlocks redevelopment, and San Bruno's Community Development Director has called this project a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city. Whether that framing holds up will depend on what the Planning Commission and City Council actually approve this fall, and on how closely the built version matches the density and use figures in the current environmental review.
For now, the honest answer to "what's happening to Tanforan" is that the visible part, empty storefronts and For Lease signs, is the least important part of the timeline. The vote happening at City Hall this fall is the part worth watching.
If you are thinking about what a changing Tanforan means for property values, commute patterns, or the long-term character of Aragon and the surrounding San Bruno neighborhoods, that is exactly the kind of on-the-ground context Benjamin Chirko tracks block by block. Request your no-surprises consultation to talk through what these changes could mean for your home or your next move.
