Emeryville, California

Mesa, California Details

Emeryville began life as a small unincorporated meat-packing district serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The smell of the slaughterhouse is long gone from the area, however; This small California city is now a headquarters for a number of major companies, a shopping center and a quieter residential alternative to the bigger nearby cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

The city is home to the headquarters of a number of major companies. Some notable examples are Pixar, Novartis, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Bayer, Clif Bar, Grocery Outlet and Jamba Juice. There is also easy commuter access by rail or by bus to the numerous lucrative tech and finance jobs in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

The central recreational and travel feature of the city is the collection of shopping centers and retail complexes located between Interstate highways 80 and 580, providing easy access to other Bay Area cities. These stores are especially popular with San Francisco residents, where building restrictions (and a general lack of physical space) prevent many of these major retailers from setting up full-size stores.

Emeryville is otherwise more of a residential or employment destination, a small city that does not have much to do other than shopping. The city does accommodate many visitors year-round, however, as it is home to a number of high-end hotels. Living in this city puts one in a central location for enjoying the Bay Area as a whole, however. San Francisco and all of its amazing possibilities is only a five-minute drive across the Bay. It’s also easy to access the Peninsula area, San Jose, Marin County, Sonoma County and Napa Valley from this city. And the Amtrak station makes it easy to range even further into California, with a relatively short ride to Sacramento and points beyond.

Amtrak commuters are familiar with Emeryville as the connection point to San Francisco; the city does not have direct railroad service, so Amtrak passengers take a bus to and from the station in the city to make their connection. It is obviously a desirable area for real estate given that it is immediately adjacent to Oakland and just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. As of February 2016 the median home price was $448,200, an increase of more than 11% over the previous year. The city’s home prices are expected to continue with small and steady gains over the coming years. The median rent is about $1,600 and the city has roughly 7,000 housing units in total.