The Cityline development at 200–250 W. Washington Avenue in downtown Sunnyvale has fully leased its office towers and opened its major retail anchors, with 793 residential units at The Martin now coming online — including 88 Below Market Rate apartments and a required $10,632,040 community benefit contribution under the 2020 development agreement.

On W. Washington Avenue in downtown Sunnyvale, the seven-story facades of two office towers now face a block that held a vacated Macy's and a field of surface parking until 2021. The towers at 200 and 250 W. Washington — the commercial spine of the Cityline development — are fully leased: Databricks anchors both, and CrowdStrike holds a portion of 250 W. Washington. Hunter Partners principal Curtis Leigh told SVVoice that between 2,300 and 3,000 workers arrive on the block each day.

The retail corridor beneath those towers, 132,700 square feet of ground-floor space, is still finding its full shape. Whole Foods Market and AMC Dine-In Sunnyvale 12 are confirmed open and drawing consistent foot traffic. Shake Shack, Senro Sushi, SEV Laser, and Sana's House Café have each signed 10-year leases and were targeting openings in late 2025 to early 2026; their current status was not confirmed at press time. Leigh told SVVoice the retail arc has been a rebound story: "The retail side obviously struggled early on, everything shut down, but retail has come roaring back." On the block as it stands now: "Cityline is now bustling with activity and the breadth of excellent dining options continues to grow."

The former Macy's building — 177,800 square feet, long vacant — came down in the summer of 2021. What replaced it, along with the surface lots ringing it, is documented in the development agreement the city signed with STC Venture LLC. Ordinance No. 20-3164, approved by the Sunnyvale City Council on August 25, 2020, authorized 793 total housing units, 181,931 square feet of retail and commercial space, and 652,801 square feet of office across the block bounded by W. Washington, Murphy, McKinley, and Taaffe, per the CEQA Notice of Determination filed September 1, 2020.

Those 793 apartments are housed in the two 12-story residential towers known as The Martin, addressed at 240 S. Taaffe Street, which have topped out construction and are in active leasing. Of the total, 88 are designated Below Market Rate — the city's Planning Commission staff report (Legistar File #20-0342) specifies 26 units affordable to very-low-income households, 52 to low-income households, and 10 to moderate-income households, roughly 11 percent of total units and above the city's on-site minimum. Catalyze SV, a Santa Clara County housing advocacy organization, encouraged the developer to push that number higher. The same Legistar filing records a requirement that STC Venture contribute up to $10,632,040 to a Community Benefit Fund as part of the agreement. The project drew no formal public opposition in Planning Commission records.

Walk east from Mathilda on W. Washington today and you pass the Whole Foods entrance, the AMC marquee, and a row of storefronts where leases are signed and build-outs are underway. The office towers overhead are full. The residential towers across Taaffe are leasing. The block has turned; the retail corridor, tenant by tenant, is still settling into it.