For most of the last century, downtown Burlingame had a main street and no center. The Avenue held the retail, Park Road held the offices, and the block between them held a parking lot. If you wanted to meet a neighbor after work, you met inside a restaurant, because there was nowhere else to stand.
That geography changed on April 2, 2026, when the city cut the ribbon on a one-acre outdoor room between Park Road and Lorton Avenue. Six months in, the square has done what a good civic space is supposed to do, which is quietly reorganize the daily habits of the people who live nearby. Fall is when the last piece drops into place.
A Living Room, Not A Park
Burlingame Town Square is not a green space in the usual sense. The Downtown Specific Plan first called for a "signature open space" in 2008, and the version the city built with SWA Group is closer to an urban living room than a park. The Grove concept the City Council selected uses a formal orthogonal layout of London Plane trees with pavers, a water wall, and a projector-lit walkway rather than lawn.
The mayor was blunt about the intent at the ribbon cutting.
"What makes a great downtown isn't really great parking, it's great vitality. It's great liveliness. It's great restaurants. It's seeing other human beings because, as humans, we want to be with humans." — Mayor Michael Brownrigg, April 2, 2026
The $6.4 million project was funded jointly by the city and the developers of the adjacent 220 Park office building, which is the second half of the story. Without 220 Park, the square is a plaza with nothing to lean against. With it, the square finally has walls.
The Ring Of Anchors, One Address At A Time
The 220 Park development delivered 185,000 square feet of Class A office space above roughly 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The tower went from 5% to 100% leased in nine months, with Confluent, Upstart, SkyKnight Capital, and Industrious co-working now occupying the floors. That tenant list is the reason the square has a lunch crowd at all. Here is what a resident can now find within a two-minute walk of the fountain:
- Sweetgreen, 235 Lorton Ave — the midday anchor for 220 Park's office tenants and the fastest option for anyone crossing the square between errands.
- Local Kitchens, 225 Lorton Ave — a multi-concept counter that runs pizza, wings, Mexican, and salads under one roof, useful for the household where nobody wants the same thing.
- Amado, on Burlingame Avenue — opened with a ribbon cutting on April 29, 2026 that the Downtown Burlingame BID described as the neighborhood's most anticipated recent opening; anchors the evening.
- Twelvemonth, 330 Lorton Ave — plant-based, all-day, seasonal menu that rotates four times a year, with a late-night menu Friday and Saturday until 11:30 p.m. and the bar open until 1 a.m.
- Trad Bone Broth — a ready-to-drink broth concept from brothers Jonathan and David Kim that fills the mid-morning gap most downtowns leave open.
None of these are national chains parachuting into a car-dependent strip. They are second- or third-restaurant projects from operators who already know the Peninsula, plus two counter formats sized for the office crowd upstairs. That is a different tenant profile than what tended to arrive in downtown Burlingame before the square broke ground, and it is the practical answer to why Wednesday evening on Lorton feels different than it did two years ago.
What Time Of Day Does The Square Actually Solve?
The interesting question for a resident is not "what opened" but "what part of the day did it fix." Downtown Burlingame already had a strong lunch scene along the Avenue and a strong dinner scene at places like Stella and Rocca. The square filled in the seams:
| Day part | What used to happen | What happens now |
|---|---|---|
| 7 to 10 a.m. | Coffee at Peet's or Copenhagen, then leave | Broth or coffee, sit at a communal table under the London plane grove |
| 12 to 2 p.m. | Sit-down lunch or takeout at desk | Sweetgreen or Local Kitchens, eat on the elevated dining terrace connected to 220 Park |
| 5 to 8 p.m. | Restaurant reservation | The square itself, then dinner at Amado or Twelvemonth without a plan |
| After 8 p.m. | Home | Bar seat at Twelvemonth until 1 a.m., or the projector-lit walkway |
The point is not that any single meal got dramatically better. It is that the block now supports the loose, unplanned in-between hours that a downtown either has or does not have. Ask any Burlingame resident who has lived here since 2015 whether they used to linger downtown at 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday without a reservation. The honest answer is no.
The Fall Piece That Has Not Landed Yet
The 1941 Art Deco post office at 220 Park is the wildcard. It closed in 2015, sat empty for nearly a decade, was designated a historic resource in 2020, and was physically moved 120 feet away during construction so crews could dig a two-level underground garage beneath it. All 1,010 tons of it were then slid back into place and integrated into the base of the new tower.
Bacchus Management Group signed a ten-year lease on the space in 2023. Bacchus is the group behind The Village Pub in Woodside, Selby's in Atherton, and Michelin-starred Spruce in San Francisco, so this is not a casual signing. The plan is roughly 8,000 square feet inside the restored building, opening in two phases according to Councilmember Peter Stevenson, first the indoor dining room and then the outdoor terrace that fronts directly onto the square. The city and the developer have been publicly targeting a fall 2026 opening for the indoor phase.
That is the anchor the square has been designed around. Every food cluster has one restaurant that sets the tone for the district, and in downtown Burlingame that restaurant has not opened yet. It is worth knowing which door you will be walking past all winter.
After Dark, The Design Reveals Itself
One detail of the square is easy to miss during the day. After sunset, theater-grade projectors wash the main walkway with a light installation that traces the path of Burlingame Creek, which has run in a culvert beneath the site for decades. It is a quiet piece of civic art, not the kind of thing that gets a headline, and it turns a pedestrian walk between Park and Lorton into something worth doing on its own.
The water wall clad in cast dichroic glass at the center of the square shifts between icy white, aqua, gold, and royal blue depending on sun angle. The palette of oranges, reds, and rusts across the paving echoes the brick façades along the Avenue, which is why the square reads as a continuation of downtown rather than a break from it. Small design decisions, but they explain why the space does not feel like a new build dropped in from a rendering.
What To Circle On The Calendar
Two dates are worth keeping loose in the fall:
- Bacchus phase-one opening at 220 Park. No firm public date, but the city has been signaling fall. If you live within walking distance, this is the opening that will change reservation math across the entire downtown, not just the square.
- Burlingame on the Avenue. The long-running annual street festival along Burlingame Avenue, with music, artisan vendors, wine tasting, and family programming. The 2026 edition of the SFO/Burlingame Chamber's summer concert series is running through its 32nd year, and the fall festival lineup keeps the square programmed on weekends.
Neither event requires a reservation, a car, or an excuse. The square was designed to hold both.
The Read
A downtown either has a center or it does not, and Burlingame spent the better part of eighty years operating without one. The version that opened in April was the plan Burlingame drew up in 2008 finally coming out of the ground, and the version that shows up this fall, once the restored post office has a working kitchen inside it, is the version the plan was actually written for. If you already live here, that is worth paying attention to before it becomes the reason someone else moves in.
If you own a home nearby and want a considered read on what the new civic center means for your street, Peninsula Realty Partners is happy to talk through it. Reach out for a consultation or an instant home valuation.
