Dolphin Bay, Foster City, CA

Dolphin Bay is Foster City's answer to balance. Primarily single family homes, some still carrying their original 1970s bones, others taken down to the studs and rebuilt into something you would not guess from the street. Like most of the city, a good number of homes back directly onto the water with dock access. Boothbay Park is the anchor. Expansive green space, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a playground that gets used hard on weekends. It is one of the few Foster City parks that is genuinely a neighborhood park rather than a citywide destination, which is exactly why people who live here like it. The other thing Dolphin Bay has that most Foster City neighborhoods do not is a real grocery run you can walk. Waterfront Plaza and Edgewater Place sit at the northeast corner, anchored by Lucky, with restaurants, salons, and daily errands stacked together. The center even has its own boat docking and a waterside boardwalk, which is a very Foster City touch: you can technically tie up your boat and go buy milk. Sitting on the west side, Dolphin Bay also offers one of the shortest commutes in town. Highway 92 and the 101 interchange are close, and that matters when the rest of the city is still working its way across the bridge approach. The tradeoff is noise and traffic. Edgewater Boulevard and Beach Park Boulevard are working arterials, and the blocks fronting them feel it. The interior streets are quiet in a way the edges simply are not, and that difference shows up in the price.