Dolphin

Just to the north of the San Carlos Airport and at the west base of Redwood Shores, Dolphin is the neighborhood best known for being the home of EA Sports—the maker of such video games as the Madden NFL football.

This area used to be part of Marine World before it moved (to Vallejo?), and you can still see signs of this from the waterways/lagoons that remain and from the names of the streets (like Twin Dolphins Drive).

The EA facility is a fairly attractive spot with a bike path and a grass “labyrinth” keeping with the general gaming ethos of EA.

But EA is not the only company who calls Dolphin home. Dolphin is also home to:

--Fourth Dimension Software, which bills itself as the “leading” provider of travel industry software solutions.

--Coraid Inc, a data storage company founded by a former Cisco big wig.

--Assia, a DSL management service provider.

--Merced Management Systems, which provides “customer-facing management systems” to help companies communicate with their customer base.

--The Quinn Emanuel law firm’s San Francisco office. (They are a huge business law firm.)

It is not just business here, however. Dolphin’s proximity to San Carlos Airport and the Peninsula in general, also make
Dolphin a prime spot for hotels. The German hotel chain, for example, Sofitel, also has a luxury facility here right at the northern edge of neighborhood, looking north towards the Marine neighborhood. There are also some hotels on the southern end right by the edge of the airport.

Dolphin also offers several services to help those who work or want to work here, such as:

For those who commute into the area and need their pre-school kids near their work, there is Hoover Children’s Center, an excellent pre-school, daycare.

For those who are looking for work, there is Nelson Staffing, an employment agency servicing the area.

And there is Pacific Athletic for those who want to take in a swim or play some racquetball during their off hours. (There is also a 24-Hour Fitness less than a block away.) I believe they also have a full service spa.

There are also restaurants in this area though none of them are especially great. We are talking Togo’s and Amici’s Pizza—the kind of chain restaurants you can find in a million other places. And if you need to stop by the supermarket, there is a Nob Hill Foods in the strip mall where these other restaurants reside.

And it is not just offices and restaurants, here, there is also a residential area. On the south eastern end of the neighborhood there are a number of condominiums built in the early 1970’s. These condos tend to go for about $600K normally (though they list for a lot less when they are in foreclosure).

On the northeastern end of the neighborhood, you have a more traditional residential neighborhood with contemporary style homes (mostly looking like modified Ranch style homes) going for around $900K or there abouts. There are actually not many of these homes for sale in this area as far as I know, which is not surprising—it is an excellent location, with flat wide streets, and a cool Bay breeze to cool everyone off.

The schools are pretty strong in this area as well. Nesbitt Elementary, which serves the area, has an API of 7, which is above average (though not quite as strong as in some other Peninsula neighborhood schools).

Overall, I would say that this neighborhood has a lot going for it, from a strong business base to a good mix of residential choices. This would be an especially great place to live if you happened to work at one of the local businesses, such as EA or Oracle.

Nestled within the outskirts of Redwood City, Dolphin is a rarely visited community glamorized by the beautiful EA Sports headquarters. In fact, the neighborhood is hardly known for its run-of-the-mill residential quarters, but more for its large business campuses and glossy commercial buildings. Its most notable is, of course, the EA Sports video game development company which anchors the heart of the community.

For those visiting, you’ll mostly be interested in the large commercial area and enormous business campuses makes up most of the community. The EA Sports facilities remind one of a small university or a Goggle-type campus with all the great amenities for perspective employees. These include tennis courts, workout facilities, an indoor pool, a convenient parking garage and beautiful commercial landscaping. During lunch hours, this tech crowd pours onto Redwood Shores to dine at their many restaurants, workout at the fitness center or get their shopping done at the local food market.

Many of those working within the community also call the Dolphin neighborhood their home. However, the district’s residential quarters are much of what you’d expect for an ordinary middle-class community. Homes are a good mix of one and two-story residences with attached two-car garages. They tend to average around $900,000 in price, but don’t fluctuate much over the years. If you drive through its couple neighborhood blocks, you’ll notice the recently paved streets, decently manicured front lawns and a couple really nice house fronts.

While Dolphin is right off the US Route 191 Highway, the area is great for commuters who travel up and down the San Francisco peninsula. The district is also within walking distance of both the Belmont and San Carlos Caltrain. For beachcombers, Dolphin is within minutes of the San Francisco Bay and miles of shoreline. In fact, the Steinberger Slough, an uninhabited marshland and canal system, lies directly east of the district.