Although Bay Meadows is already home to 1,300 residents, three years after construction got underway, the 83-acre community is really beginning to take shape now. Plans for the former horse racetrack site in San Mateo ultimately call for 1,150 units of housing, 780,000 square feet of office space and 18 acres of open space. Adjacent to the Hillsdale Caltrain station, it was envisioned as “a mixed-use village that could reflect how people want to live, work and play today,” says Janice Thacher, a partner at Wilson Meany, which is developing the tract along with Bay Meadows’ owner Stockbridge Capital. “We sometimes call it a mid-urban environment because it’s a blend of the best of urban and suburban lifestyles.”

The Meadow Walk—a 74-home neighborhood with townhomes starting at $1,104,000—recently opened; more than half have already sold. By the end of the year, Danish artist Jeppe Hein’s interactive sculpture, “Mirror Labyrinth NY—for California,” will be installed at Bay Meadows’ Town Square. In early 2017, Blue Bottle Coffee and Tin Pot Creamery plan to set up shop here, as does SurveyMonkey, which is moving its headquarters from Palo Alto. (Since Wilson Meany developed the Ferry Building in San Francisco, expect artisanal purveyors to be a priority for the retail spaces.)

A charitable and community event, Red Hot Roundup, took place on Sept. 17. The festivities included food trucks, a DJ, lawn games and a spicy wing-eating contest, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation and the San Mateo County Parks Foundation. “It’s part of what we’re doing to welcome people from throughout the region to Bay Meadows,” says Thacher. “Plus, who wouldn’t want to gather at a beautiful park to enjoy great food trucks and maybe even brush up their salsa moves or take a spin on roller skates?”

Originally published in the September issue of Modern Luxury Silicon Valley