For decades, affordable housing has been treated like a necessary evil by real estate developers, something they’re forced to include to appease city officials, not something that actually makes business sense. But now, Silicon Valley’s most powerful office developer is challenging that entire playbook.

The Sobrato Organization, the company behind some of the Bay Area’s most iconic tech campuses, just opened The Millton in Redwood City: a six-story apartment building with over 120 units designed specifically for people earning 30% to 80% of the area’s median income (around $150,000). This isn’t some philanthropic side project, it’s a full-scale development they built from the ground up, and they’re treating it like any other real estate investment.

“We want to dispel the myth that what’s good for the community can’t be good for business too”, said Sobrato CEO Tony Mestres. “We’re the chase rabbit right now, but I can think of 10 other companies who should be doing this too”.

Sobrato is in a unique position to take this risk. Unlike most commercial real estate firms that flip properties for quick profits, Sobrato is family-controlled and holds onto its assets long-term. That means the company can think beyond quarterly earnings reports and invest in projects that benefit the community while still generating returns.

The Millton is just the beginning. The company is planning to build 350 market-rate units next door, plus a child-care center and retail space on the 11-acre site. The vision is creating a mixed-income neighborhood where different economic groups actually live and work together, something increasingly rare in the Bay Area.

The need for this kind of development is staggering. More than 234,000 low-income renter households in the Bay Area can’t access affordable housing, according to California Housing Partnership research. Of those families, 71% are spending more than half their income just on rent. People are literally being priced out of where they work, forcing long commutes or relocating entirely.

“The greatest threat to Silicon Valley is affordability”, said Sobrato executive Lyman. “It’s time to get dirty”.

Redwood City Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos gets it. He worked for the neighborhood association in this exact area after college in 2017 and watched families leave because they couldn’t afford to stay. For him, Sobrato’s investment represents exactly what the Bay Area desperately needs.

The real question now is whether other major developers will follow Sobrato’s lead. The company has made billions building offices for Apple, Netflix, and Nvidia. If they can prove that affordable housing development is viable at scale, it removes the biggest excuse others use for ignoring the crisis.

Sobrato CEO Mestres put it bluntly: “It’s a moral imperative that we take an active part in addressing this issue. Otherwise, we’re going to become a third-world place where the divide is worse than it is now”.

For a region drowning in a housing crisis, that’s exactly the kind of bold thinking we need.