Suburban Park / Lorelei Manor / Flood Park Triangle

Suburban Park, also known as Lorelei Manor and Floor Park Triangle (quite the mouthful), is a mildly quaint, run-of-the-mill Menlo Park community. The neighborhood as a whole, caters to the plain, middle-class and nothing more. Geographically speaking, it is a thin slice of land nestled against US Route 101, which makes it more of a passover community than anything else. The area has two distinct parts, the commercial quarters that encompass the northern half the residential area that lies below Bohannon Drive.

Although a part of the affluent Menlo Park community, Suburban Park is a very simplistic, and all-too-ordinary neighborhood. Most homes are small, one-story in size and have an attached two-car garage (some have one-car garages). Moreover, they are small and boxy in shape, and situated on plain, petite properties. If you head north, the commercial district bleeds of commercial anonymity. The area is blanketed with mediocre to moderately attractive office parks, acres of employee parking lots and a couple unmarked depots.

The neighborhood’s one perk is its convenience to the US Route 101 on ramp. But even that can be a bit annoying with traffic and the Amtrak train sounding off throughout the day. For young families, Flood Park is situated at the heart of the community, but only offers two ragged youth baseball fields.

The first thing I should say about this area is that it has a little bit of a bad rep because it is nestled right up against the Belle Haven area, which borders East Palo Alto which is considered to be gang territory by the white bread standards of regular Palo Alto crowd.

You are, however, separated by a freeway from Belle Haven, so I think you are probably okay in this area even if there were a big problem in that ares (which I’m not convinced there is). The homes in this area are some of the oldest I think that you will find in all of Menlo Park. There are these high roofed homes that sort of look like Ranch houses but which I have seen in other cities (like Oakland for example) and they usually date from before WWII. These are not like the homes in the classic areas of Old Palo Alto, for example, where the homes just exude a classic feeling of class. These homes feel a lot shoddier, even if the neighborhood feels relatively well-kept overall.

You also, however, get a number of Eichlers here as well. So they aren’t all older homes. Overall, however, the neighborhood feels a little bit worn down by Menlo Park standards.

I am not sure if this translates into lower rents as I don’t remember there being any rental homes in the neighborhood during apartment hunt last summer.

I should also mention that there is a fairly bland looking office park on the northern end of the neighborhood. Nothing to write home about and with a fair amount of empty space for rent apparently.

Unfortunately the schools are not very strong around here either—which kind of ruins this for families with small children (though as your kids get older they would graduate into some of the better upper level schools in Menlo Park).

Overall, an okay spot maybe if the rents are low, but probably not otherwise.