Farallon

The Farallon neighborhood in Belmont, stretching from just north of the Oracle HQ down to Twin Dolphins Drive along the Bayshore Freeway, is mostly known for its hotels. In and around this neighborhood, you will find hotels from the likes of the Radisson, to the Holiday Inn to Motel 6. Largely it is about the positioning here—right by the San Carlos Airport and located seemingly equidistant from SF, Oakland and San Jose –it is the perfect crossroads for hotels.

By far, however, the best of these joints, however, is the Sofitel, one of the really great hotels in the Peninsula (possibly in the Bay Area). It is a beautiful sprawling international hotel of the kind you expect in SF or in Europe more than at this spot. Rooms, in case you’re wondering, start at $265 per night. Many choose it for their weddings—it is definitely the place for getting back in tune with your significant other.

There are also a handful of companies here. Asera, Inc., for example, is a tech company that consults with companies to offer them internet service solutions; and Actiance, another Farallon tech company helps financial companies use the web for marketing and communications.

On the far northern end of the neighborhood, you will also find a couple of townhome neighborhoods where all the homes have the same homogenous look—giving these neighborhoods a very clean uniformity that is both their strength and their great drawback, since everything just seems a little too premeditated.

Part of Belmont, Farallon is both a small commercial neighborhood and an eclectic mix of middle-class communities. For the resident, the district is split between two very different housing areas: one of older and less-glamorous aesthetics while the other is of newly-constructed housing complexes. Geographically speaking, the area is a skinny strip of land that follows US Route 101’s eastern side and is within the vast canals and slough system that makes up other bayside communities. It is also made up of a very sparse community (total population of 300) with the demographic split evenly between white and asian residents.

While firmly gripped in the middle-class, Farallon’s residential quarters are concentrated within the small, northern tip of the neighborhood. And this is split into two distinct sections. One area is saturated with old, relatively boxy and not-too-glamorous homes with mildly attractive properties, while the other is made up of finely tuned (although tightly-packed) and newly-built housing complex clustered around Clipper Drive. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but the latter of which I would recommend. These modern-looking apartment buildings come with charming, two-story house fronts (but little garage space) and a more modernistic living experience. According to the 2010 US Census, typical housing prices are anywhere from $700,000 to $1 million. Moreover, the average resident rakes in an unexpected $100,000/year.

Farallon isn’t much of a traditional neighborhood. The district has everything from a Mercedes Dealership to a beautiful Hyatt Suites hotel to a large sports facility. The Hyatt Suites lodge is a well-groomed hotel with a scenic pond in front and usually hosts businessmen and women from the adjacent Oracle headquarters. Also, the Belmont Sports Complex, situated along Island Parkway, offers a couple baseball diamonds, stadium seating and batting cages, all of which fall under stadium lighting. And for commuters, US Route 101 and the Belmont Caltrain are within minutes of the district and both connect residents up and down the San Francisco peninsula.