{"id":253994,"date":"2026-04-06T12:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253994\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:30:19","slug":"redevelopment-of-famed-greyhound-station-to-jump-start-calif-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253994\/","title":{"rendered":"Redevelopment of famed Greyhound station to jump-start Calif. downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask around a little, and nobody, save perhaps for a handful of petty crooks, really misses the Bakersfield<\/a> Greyhound bus station all that much.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Built in 1958, in the wake of the Bakersfield earthquakes<\/a> that leveled much of the city\u2019s downtown, the low-slung and theatrically nondescript concrete cinder block of a station was, for decades, a place where grifters, killers, drifters and some of the FBI\u2019s most wanted were picked up and dropped off.<\/p>\n

For most of its 60-year run, the Bakersfield Greyhound station was something of a\u00a0living true crime novella<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Greatest hits from the notorious station include the FBI\u2019s takedown of bank robber Francisco J. Durante, after he was \u201crecognized by several people as he sat waiting for a bus in the Bakersfield Greyhound station,\u201d the Richmond Independent reported on Jun. 27, 1972.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThomas Hawk via Flickr CC 2.0<\/p>\n

The Bakersfield Greyhound was also the site of the apprehension of Frankie Tucker, a former Marine and cop who was wanted in Texas on suspicion of a sex crime involving a minor. Tucker was spotted in April 2008 at the station after having recently been featured on \u201cAmerica\u2019s Most Wanted.\u201d He was arrested less than a week before another \u201cAmerica\u2019s Most Wanted\u201d star, Malcolm Kysor, was also arrested in Bakersfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

And in the summer of 2018, a woman who became known as the \u201cGreyhound bus stabber\u201d boarded the bus and allegedly proceeded to terrorize two passengers. Teresa Madrigal, 48, got on the bus in Bakersfield and sat between Marcelia Vidal and her young daughter. Shortly into the ride, Madrigal allegedly pulled out a knife and threatened Vidal\u2019s daughter with it. Vidal intervened and was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

So it came as no surprise that the station \u2014 which was eventually relocated to the downtown Amtrak depot while the original building on 18th and F streets sat abandoned \u2014 was demolished in 2022 with little fanfare.<\/p>\n

But the same can\u2019t be said about the project that\u2019s set to replace it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A rendering of the Greyhound Flats housing redevelopment coming to downtown Bakersfield, Calif.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Anna Smith\/Sage Equities<\/p>\n

Greyhound Flats<\/a> is a high-end apartment complex from a known downtown redevelopment firm and the same architect who just revitalized the historic Woolworth\u2019s building<\/a> a couple of blocks away. It\u2019s seen as a next step for the California metro\u2019s surging downtown<\/a>, as well as yet another \u2014 albeit much different \u2014 opportunity to both acknowledge and turn the page on downtown Bakersfield\u2019s recent past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greyhound station was a wonderfully brutalist structure,\u201d architect Daniel Cater, whose Cater Design Group<\/a> is helming the project\u2019s design, told SFGATE Wednesday. \u201cThe decisions to remove the structure happened years before this team got involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cater, who grew up in Bakersfield, said he passes by the footprint of the bus station on the way to work every day, and though he recalls some of the not-so-glory days of the station, he also chooses to remember the site as the place where, as a kid, the bus would spirit him and his family away to LAX. It was a place that meant travel and a connection to the rest of the state, and it was a key component to the \u201cmodern architecture that represents the city post-earthquake that had to pull it together and keep going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Architect<\/p>\n

Architect Daniel Cater pictured outside his office in downtown Bakersfield, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025.<\/p>\n

Charles Russo\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s only been in recent years that Bakersfield has started to take inventory of and embrace those midcentury post-quake gems: buildings like the\u00a0Kern County courthouse and the Beale Memorial Library, whose sleek facades and late-20th century charms had been previously lost to audiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Now, those structures represent overlooked examples, recently recognized or revitalized in a downtown that is also finding its way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cater said he feels incorporating the station\u2019s past \u2014 the good, the bad and the notorious \u2014 has always underscored the project: \u201cTo me, the physicality of downtown and the folklore of downtown \u2014 there\u2019s no shortage of folklore or legend \u2014 inspired [us] to riff off of those ideas,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Greyhound Flats housing redevelopment, in the shadow of the famed Padre Hotel, is about to break ground in downtown Bakersfield, Calif.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Anna Smith\/Sage Equities<\/p>\n

Renderings of the Greyhound Flats<\/a> project, slated to break ground this summer, show a lot of that modernist architecture, down to the sign on the front of the building that says \u201cGreyhound.\u201d It is this effort to embrace, not shy away from, the town\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual station, it did have a history,\u201d Anna Smith, a Bakersfield Californian columnist<\/a> and managing partner, along with her husband Austin, of Sage Equities<\/a>, the development company leading the project, told SFGATE. \u201cIt was a large station, and people trailed through there. My grandparents and parents had fond memories as well, but in the last 30 years, it was in such disrepair \u2014 it was a homeless encampment \u2026 Definitely an eyesore, seen by local businesses around it as a place that either needed to be rethought or removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sage Equities partnered with the Mojibis, a prominent Bakersfield family whose patriarch, Majid Mojibi, \u201ccame to the U.S. in 1967 with $18 in his pocket,\u201d KGET-TV wrote<\/a>, and ended up owning his own business, San Joaquin Refining Company. In 2022, Mojibi was tragically struck by a driver and killed on F Street \u2014 ironically near the site of where the new project will be built.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A rendering of the Greyhound Flats housing redevelopment coming to dowontown Bakersfield, Calif.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Anna Smith\/Sage Equities<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mojibi family acquired it in 2020,\u201d Smith continued, explaining how the Greyhound project came to be. \u201cFor decades, the city has been looking at what to do with the station. They … got to a point where they wanted to bring in a partner that has experience with housing. That\u2019s where we connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greyhound site is really my favorite project,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt\u2019s really inspired by the Mojibi family. They had a vision. They really care about what\u2019s best for the community. Hopefully, they can inspire other families to think that way. I think it\u2019s a way to give back and keep local money local.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Sage Equities and Cater Design Group are celebrating their 10-year anniversaries, and their businesses have been intertwined from the onset. The pair have collaborated on previous projects, including one called the Cue Eastchester Flats and one called 918 at Eastchester \u2014 successful residential developments on the famously moribund east side of downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Cars<\/p>\n

Cars drive past the Padre Hotel in downtown Bakersfield just blocks from the site of the Greyhound bus station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charles Russo\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Architect Cater said the firms\u2019 early collaborations came with a heavy dose of outsider skepticism but, eventually, provided a toehold and a template to show that people really did want to live and work in downtown Bakersfield once more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom an urban design standpoint, people living in a space are there 24 hours a day. They\u2019re here when no one else is,\u201d Cater explained. \u201cThey become the eyes on the street when everyone else is going to their respective neighborhoods. Housing is a huge piece of the puzzle to a vibrant community, and we\u2019re on its way toward that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Smith, Sage Equities\u2019 other principal, said he\u2019s looking forward to the project being completed in 16 months and opening in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The average unit size for a one-bedroom will be about 750 square feet, with rent starting around $2,000 a month, he said. For high-end, new housing, Smith pointed out that it\u2019s \u201cless than coastal markets\u201d and not bad for a city that\u2019s central to everything in the state that\u2019s also on the upswing itself.<\/p>\n

Smith said while Sage Equities won\u2019t reveal the specifics of any one tenant, the demographic that tends to move into their housing developments \u2014 all Sage Equities downtown infill projects are rentals \u2014 comprises young professionals who are relocating from a slightly bigger or more expensive metro for a job and not only discovering for themselves what Bakersfield has to offer but, eventually, figuring out what they can bring to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Building a place of permanence out of a notorious transit hub was not lost on Cater and his team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBakersfield is still one of those places where the reason people love to live here is not apparent at a 55 mph pass-through,\u201d he said, noting that outsiders who move downtown immediately get a cheat code over their tract-dwelling counterparts. \u201cWhen you see the San Francisco skyline, you say, \u2018Oh, this is an exciting place to live.\u2019 Bakersfield, on the other hand, is an insider club with the way things are and the way to live and what\u2019s exciting. Downtown Bakersfield, for people who have no context to it, helps narrow that bridge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

More Central California News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask around a little, and nobody, save perhaps for a handful of petty crooks, really misses the Bakersfield…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,1894,1228],"class_list":{"0":"post-253994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news","11":"tag-sfgcentralca","12":"tag-sfgtravel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}