The Only Block Of Laurel Street That's Actually Under Construction

Sunday morning at the Laurel Street Farmers' Market looks the way it always has. Produce stalls run the length of the street between San Carlos Avenue and Cherry Street, the coffee line backs up outside the shops on the north end, and somebody's dog is inevitably tangled around a flower vendor's table. But walk two blocks south toward Harrington Park and the scene changes. Construction crews have been working through 2026 on a full rebuild of that stretch, and if you only pay attention to what you see there, it's easy to assume the whole street is in some kind of limbo.

It isn't. The disruption has a specific address, and everything else on Laurel Street has kept moving without it.

What's Actually Closed

The construction is centered on Harrington Park and the 700 block of Laurel, the block where the park meets the street. The city calls the finished project Centennial Plaza, and it's the product of a planning process that's been public for years. The San Carlos City Council adopted the final design for Harrington Park in June 2025, and the Downtown Specific Plan that governs the surrounding streetscape took effect on February 25, 2026, after a second reading of Ordinance No. 1633 that January. Funding for the 700 block work was folded into the city's two-year budget for fiscal years 2026 through 2028, and the park itself has been under construction through 2026.

The scope is specific too. The plan calls for a multiuse pavilion with a raised stage up to 22 feet tall, positioned where the park meets Laurel Street, plus a water feature still being finalized through public input. Ten existing trees are coming out, replaced one for one with new Engelmann Oaks and Sierra Red Oaks. The "Balancing Act" sculpture, the juggling figure that's stood in that stretch for years, isn't disappearing. It's being relocated to the northern end of the 700 block near Cherry Street.

None of this is a surprise to anyone who's followed the city's downtown planning. Council members were describing the intent well before construction started. At an October 2025 meeting approving the conceptual design, Mayor Sara McDowell told the San Mateo Daily Journal, "We've come so far since the pandemic." The 700 block, worth remembering, had already been closed to car traffic since December 2023, when the council permanently shut it down as a pedestrian mall. What's happening now is a rebuild of ground that residents had already stopped driving through years ago.

What Never Stopped

The Sunday market didn't pause for any of this. It's now managed by the Urban Village Farmers' Market Association, running year round, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the section of Laurel between San Carlos Avenue and Cherry Street, outside the construction footprint entirely. The city's summer events calendar hasn't paused either, and it isn't even on Laurel Street to begin with. Burton Park, several blocks away, hosted its Family Campout this past Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, complete with tents, s'mores, and a movie at dusk. The Music in the Park concert series has run free Friday-night shows there every week since June and still has dates left this month. Flanagan Field, inside the same park, picks up outdoor family movie nights on September 5 and 19.

That's the part of the "Laurel Street is under construction" story that gets flattened when people talk about downtown as one unit. The park work and the concert series exist in the same neighborhood but not the same footprint. Nobody rerouted a single Friday concert around a fence at Harrington Park.

The Restaurant Wave Nobody Paused For

Here's the detail that actually says something about how confident local operators are in the project's scope. The restaurant turnover on Laurel Street kept happening after the city's construction timeline was already public, not before it.

• Pranzi, the Italian restaurant at 777 Laurel Street, has been building a following with its wood-fired and pasta menu.
• Elia, a Greek restaurant under co-owner Fatih Ulas, took over the former Taurus space. Ulas has grown the concept to four Bay Area locations, and he told the Mercury News in January 2026 that he already runs other Elia locations in Pleasanton and Walnut Creek, meaning San Carlos wasn't a test run.
• Pazzo, at 1179 Laurel Street, opened under Andy Gambardella, previously of Gambardella's, with a focused menu of Neapolitan-style wood-fired pizza. Its spot near Brittan Avenue extends the walkable stretch further south than it used to run.
• Esnaf brought Turkish food into the former Cuisinett space on a street that had skewed heavily Italian and Greek.
• Highlands Sports Bar & Grill opened where Sneakers American Grill used to be, run by Christian Conte, who already owns Drakes down the block. The concept runs 36 craft beers on tap.
• Rouge, a concept from owners Huseyin and Sema Tosun, filed for its alcohol license to land at 890 Laurel Street in early 2025, aiming to join longtime neighbors Lou's Cafe, Lulu's on Laurel Street, and Nothing Bundt Cakes.

On the drink and activity side, Domenico Winery keeps a ticketed events calendar built around its Cal-Italia varietals, including its Annual Orphan Barrel Tasting this past March. Devil's Canyon Brewing Company runs a covered back patio alongside breadmaking classes and comedy nights. Hapa's Brewing Company has built a steady following around its recurring Brainstormer Trivia nights, and Molly O's anchors live Irish music on the block. Laurel Street Arts runs ceramics and canvas workshops for anyone who wants a reason to be downtown that has nothing to do with food.

Every one of those openings happened after the city's plan for Harrington Park was already drawn up and moving toward approval. Operators who could have waited for construction to wrap, or picked a different street entirely, signed leases anyway. That's not a coincidence. It's a read on how much of the corridor is actually affected, and it matches what the numbers on the ground show: one park, one block, surrounded by a street that kept adding restaurants through the same stretch of time.

What's Coming Before The Dust Settles

The next big test of that read is the Art & Wine Faire, returning October 10 and 11, 2026. It's billed as the Peninsula's largest fall festival, drawing more than 40,000 people annually across three entertainment stages, with beer, wine, and food vendors filling both Laurel Street and San Carlos Avenue for the weekend. The Faire has run through this exact stretch of downtown for years. Whether the Harrington Park work is far enough along by October to reopen that section for the festival, or whether the Faire routes around it the way the farmers market already does, is the one open question worth watching this fall.

Quick reference for the rest of the year:

The version of this story that travels fastest around town is the simple one: Laurel Street is torn up. The more accurate version is that one park and one block are mid-rebuild, on a timeline the city has been public about for over a year, while the rest of the corridor has spent that same year adding restaurants, breweries, and a wine bar's worth of reasons to keep showing up. If you've been avoiding downtown because you heard it was a mess, the mess has an address, and it isn't the whole street.

If you're curious what any of this means for property values or timing near downtown, that's a longer conversation, and it's one the team at Heather Lin Homes is always glad to have. Schedule a Free Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.