A black and white photo in a 1975 edition of the San Mateo Times shows a woman placing a piece of paper in a Xerox machine. The Xerox 6500, the first to make full color copies, was such an achievement, visitors were invited to a demonstration at the company’s branch office at 3000 Clearview Way in San Mateo.
The need for low-rise suburban office parks of the 1970s and 1980s like that on Clearview Way is, like the Xerox machine itself, diminishing in quaint commuter Peninsula towns. Cities are under increasing pressure to meet state housing mandates and address the housing crisis, and more people are working remotely.
The San Mateo executive park at 3000 Clearview Way is no longer home to Xerox; nor is it home to its former tenants Visa, Tesla or, most recently, GoPro and Skydio. Instead, developers are planning to put hundreds of housing units on the site, which sits in the hills with clear views of the San Francisco Bay near state Route 92 and College of San Mateo…