Plants and other greenery take in the sunlight inside of The Milton’s atrium in Redwood City.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
For generations the Sobrato Organization has been known for building some of Silicon Valley’s flashiest corporate campuses — homes for Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, EMC, VeriSign, Facebook and Amazon.
But these days the Silicon Valley heavyweight spends much of its time and resources on something a lot less sexy: affordable housing.
On Friday the Sobrato Organization, led by 86 year-old multi-billionaire John Sobrato, held a celebration for the opening of The Milton, a 120-unit project in Redwood City.
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While the Milton is the first 100% affordable ground-up development Sobrato has done alone, the group is an investor with Apple in the $100 million Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, which recently completed 126 senior low-income units at 1633 Valencia in San Francisco and is building 120 units in Santa Cruz.
In addition, Sobrato is scooping up “naturally affordable” apartment complexes, fixing them and then imposing deed restrictions so that the units will remain affordable. Altogether, Sobrato and partners have preserved or built about 850 affordable units, with other projects in San Jose, Hayward and Daly City.
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Tony Mestres, CEO of he Sobrato, said the company’s “overall philanthropic strategy recognizes that safe, secure affordable housing is the center of the chess board in terms of supporting the people of the community.”
“Without that, how can you have educational achievement for the kids? How can you have economic opportunities for members of the family?” he said.
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The exterior of the Milton, a new affordable housing development located in Redwood City.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
Adam Briones, director of Housing Security Initiative for the Sobrato Organization, poses for a portrait in the Milton’s atrium.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
An empty apartment inside of the Milton.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
The view from the rooftop of the Milton.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
The Sobrato family business, which has developed 21.4 million square feet, started with a small restaurant in San Francisco North Beach, John’s Rendezvous, that grew over the years in popularity and size. After owner John Massimo Sobrato died in 1952 of cancer, his widow, Ann Sobrato, sold the restaurant and started buying up land in the South Bay, working in partnership with her son John Albert Sobrato, who just a teenager.
“That began a multi-generational journey that has always been guided by the family’s Jesuit faith and their principle of being there for others,” Mestres said. “It’s an amazing story of an Italian immigrant family achieving the American dream.”
The Sobrato organization is made up of three parts: real estate operations, a capital investment group, and philanthropy division that includes the Sobrato Family Foundation. In total Sobrato Philanthropies has spent $1.5 billion on projects that advance economic mobility, education achievement, climate action, and affordable housing, according to Mestres.
“We have been able to responsibly grow the real estate and capital businesses in order to fuel the philanthropy,” Mestres said.
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The Milton, which will include social services funded by the family foundation, is part of the larger Broadway Village development, about four blocks east of downtown Redwood City, which will total 520 units. The remaining 400 apartments are nearing compilation. The office space is on hold.
Sobrato is not trying to compete with the Bay Area’s prolific non-profit housing developers like Mercy Housing and Mid-Pen Housing, but rather support and complement the work those groups do, according to Adam Briones, director of Sobrato’s Housing Security Initiative.
The company looks for situations “where we can bring our ability as a market real estate company to come in and act quickly, especially where there are buildings for sale that could be bought by an owner who doesn’t care about affordability,” Briones said.
One of the first residents to move into the Milton was Murray Frost, who is managing the leasing of the building for Sobrato. Frost, who has two young children, said that 75% of the 16 families who have signed leases are moving from elsewhere in Redwood City, where rents are up 50% since 2020 and a two-bedroom apartment averages $3,600, according to RentCafe.
Property Manager and resident of the Milton, Murray Frost, sits for a portrait inside of The Hub.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
Some 1,291 households applied for housing at the 120-unit Milton. The vast majority are families with children, Frost said. The rents are affordable to families earning between 30% and 80% of area median income. Rents for a one-bedroom range from $1,028 to $3,004, depending on income.
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“I have people in retail, rest, clerical, admin, construction, IT,” Frost said. “They range from early 20s to mid-60s. It’s a pretty broad range.”
Under state housing law Redwood City was on the hook to plan for 4,588 new housing units between 2023 and 2031, of which more than half are supposed to be affordable to low- and moderate-income families. So far the city has produced 1,321 units, of which 668 qualify as affordable.
Frost, whose wife works at the Trader Joe’s in San Mateo, said he likes the Milton’s proximity to schools, health care and shopping. It’s about a 10 minute walk from downtown Redwood City. Eventually Broadway Village will have 10,000 square feet of retail, a day care center, and four acres of open space.
“For me, personally, it’s about as good as I can get in the Bay Area,” he said.
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