At about 9:00 a.m. on December 20, 2022, someone saw fire in the front room of a nail salon at 43341 Mission Boulevard and called 911. The fire ran through the first floor and badly damaged the second floor and the roof. The Fire Department red-tagged the building, and it has stood secured, boarded and empty ever since. If you have walked to the church or waited at the light on Mission Boulevard over the past four years, you know the building. It is the two-story wood one with plywood over the windows, about 100 feet from Mission San José on the other side of the boulevard.
The building is staying. Fremont's Planning Commission approved a redevelopment of the land around it on July 23, 2026. The plan keeps the burned building and its 1895 neighbor on Mission Boulevard and places the new homes behind and beside them, with the new storefront on Ellsworth Street. More than two years before that approval, the city had already refused to let the fire be the end of the building.
A Cobbler, a Wells Fargo Agent, and an 1895 Frontage
City records call it the Sunderer Boot Shop/Wells Fargo Station. It went up in 1895 as the shop and home of Joseph Sunderer, a German immigrant who worked in Mission San Jose as a cobbler and as the Wells Fargo agent, among other jobs. The Sunderer family changed it very little while they owned it. Most of the changes date from after 1960, when the McIvor family bought the property. Original door and window openings were filled in, aluminum sliders replaced the wood windows, and a ramp was added on the southwest side.
Even with those changes, a 2019 survey by the preservation firm Page & Turnbull found that the building's "essential exterior features" were still there. It listed the features that give the building its identity:
- Its position on the Mission Boulevard frontage
- A hipped, shingled roof with exposed rafter tails
- Wood channel siding
- Double-hung wood sash windows with molded trim
- Wood panel doors
- The front porch lined up with the second-story balcony
The survey found the building eligible for the California Register of Historical Resources on two grounds, its connection to historic events and its connection to a historic person. It said the building keeps all seven aspects of historic integrity. It is already on Fremont's own Register of Historic Resources.
The smaller one-story building next door at 43353 Mission Boulevard is the same age. It is Steyer's Lyons Brewery Depot, built in 1895 and believed to be the work of Charles Steyer, who ran a saloon there and lived in the building. It has been altered more heavily. Its parapet roof, front gable and chimney are gone, and the south side of its porch has been closed in. A 2007 evaluation found it ineligible for the state register, but recommended it for the Fremont Register because of its link to how downtown Mission San Jose grew in the nineteenth century.
Taken together, the two buildings are the oldest stretch of commercial frontage facing the church.
The Request to Tear It Down, and Why It Failed
After the fire, an outside structural evaluation found "substantial structural damage," and the owner applied for an emergency demolition. In Fremont, that kind of request goes to the Historical Architectural Review Board. Here is how it played out:
- September 7, 2023. HARB heard the request. Eight speakers spoke against it. The board voted 3–0 to postpone a decision until the city could hire its own structural engineer to check the applicant's report.
- January 18, 2024. The city's peer reviewer agreed that the damage was substantial. HARB still voted 4–0 to deny the demolition, and nobody appealed.
- November 2025. Some time after the denial, the applicant hired a historic architect. In November 2025 the applicant filed a Repair & Historic Rehabilitation Plan covering the burned exterior surfaces, doors, windows, porch and roof. HARB's secretary approved it as in-kind replacement consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards.
Both engineers agreed the building was badly damaged, and the board denied the demolition anyway. The development approved in 2026 keeps the building where it has stood since 1895.
The restoration has its own approval, separate from the new development. In an August 7, 2026 update, the City said the applicant expected to apply for a building permit for the Sunderer building "in the coming weeks."
What Goes Behind the Two Old Buildings
The rest of the 1.01-acre site sits behind and beside the two 1895 buildings. Most residents know it as McIvor's Hardware. That family-owned store was in a 1988 building at 43350 Ellsworth Street until 2018, and the building has been empty since. The project is called Villa Ellsworth, and its city case number, PLN2020-00170, goes back to 2020. It replaces the hardware store building with five new buildings.
| Element | What's approved |
|---|---|
| Homes | 17 condominiums: 14 townhouse-style units and three flats |
| Unit size | 1,395 to 2,155 square feet, averaging 1,651 |
| Style | Spanish Colonial Revival, within the 30-foot height limit |
| Commercial space | 2,476 square feet, one tenant space facing Ellsworth Street |
| Residential parking | 28 covered spaces and 12 open spaces |
| Commercial parking | 14 spaces, 10 of them curbside on Ellsworth Street and Mission Boulevard |
The one commercial space faces Ellsworth Street, not Mission Boulevard. The Mission Boulevard sidewalk stays as it is. The Ellsworth Street sidewalk widens to 17 feet. The 12-foot public alley that runs through the property between the two streets widens to 20 feet. The exception is the Mission Boulevard end, where the Sunderer building and a neighboring building leave no room. The alley stays public, and the project's owners' association will maintain it.
The courtyard between the two historic buildings keeps its size and orientation. It gets new paving, four trees, landscaping, a bench, a street light and a decorative boulder. Seen from Mission Boulevard, then, the block keeps its two 1895 buildings and a better courtyard between them. The new homes go behind them, and the new shop and the wider sidewalk go on the Ellsworth Street side.
A Split Board Before the Approval
The plan reached the Planning Commission without a recommendation. At its June 4, 2026 hearing, HARB voted 2–2 with one member absent, so the motion to recommend approval failed. The motion that failed would have attached conditions: a dedicated sidewalk in the alley, awnings over the storefront windows, and a low wall about two feet high under the storefront glass to give the street frontage a human scale.
According to the minutes, speakers raised the Sunderer restoration, the architectural style, parking, the street pattern, the Mission San Jose Design Guidelines, the project's height and the city's development process. Written comments added concerns about three-story massing, how the slope makes the buildings look taller, alley access, and getting the historic buildings repaired on time.
City staff said the design guidelines for the Mission San Jose Historic Overlay District contain no objective design standards that apply to this project. Staff also found that the proposal substantially conformed to the guidelines' broader guidance on village character. The site is in the district's Core Area, which has the highest concentration of Fremont Register resources in the district. The full Planning Commission staff report and the June 4 HARB minutes are public.
The Commission approved the project on July 23. The state's CEQAnet record shows the notice of exemption posted on July 29, 2026.
Ellsworth Street Is Where the Village Grows
Villa Ellsworth is one of a cluster of projects. In its August announcement, the City listed three more within a block or two:
- Ellsworth Mixed Use, at the southwest corner of Ellsworth Street and Grove Avenue: 12 homes and 4,581 square feet of commercial space. The City said construction was expected to begin this fall.
- Mission Paradise, at the southwest corner of Mission Boulevard and Ellsworth Street: 13 homes and 2,985 square feet of commercial space.
- Mission Oak, at 43512 Ellsworth Street: 24 units, two of them affordable for low-income households.
The City connects these projects to its Mission San Jose Commercial Strategy Study, done in 2018 and 2019, which recommended concentrating revitalization around Mission Boulevard and Ellsworth Street and improving the public realm. Across the four projects, that is 66 homes and more than 10,000 square feet of new commercial space. Almost all of it is on Ellsworth Street or within a corner of it. Mission Boulevard keeps its 1895 buildings, and most of the new growth is planned for the street behind them.
Some of that activity has already started nearby. Fremont's September economic development newsletter announced a grand opening on Sunday, October 11 for Sucré D'Amour Café and Sushi at 43571 Mission Boulevard. It serves drinks, desserts, afternoon tea and sushi. The café's website lists its daily hours and online ordering.
What Happens Before Any Work Starts
The approval comes with conditions that set the order of work. The applicant needs final-map and building-permit approvals before construction begins. The applicant also needs a construction management plan and protections for the historic resources. During street improvements, the developer must keep the parking and drop-off and pick-up area of the preschool and daycare next to the site accessible. For people who drop children off on Ellsworth Street, that last condition is likely to matter most day to day once crews arrive.
Near the church, the first visible sign of progress may be the restoration permit for the Sunderer building. The approved plan covers repairs to the porch, along with the building's burned exterior surfaces, doors, windows and roof.
Our team has spent two generations around Fremont's older districts, and we follow projects like this block by block. If you live near Mission and Ellsworth and want to know how this redevelopment could affect your own property's story, we're glad to talk it through. Reach out to the Joseph Sabeh Group to Work With Us.
