Fremont Neighborhoods: A Guide for Buyers and Sellers

Fremont is really several towns in one. Five small communities joined in 1956 to form the city, and their names still mark the neighborhoods around them. This guide is for anyone thinking about buying or selling a home in Fremont. It describes each area’s character and housing without ranking them, then covers transit and parks.

How five towns became one city

For thousands of years, Ohlone people lived in permanent villages near what is now Mission San Jose. In 1797 Father Fermín de Lasuén founded Mission San Jose, the 14th California mission and the first European settlement in what is now Alameda County. In 1853 settlers formed Washington Township, which came to include Mission San Jose, Centerville, Niles, Irvington and Warm Springs. In the 1910s Niles became an early home of California’s film industry. Charlie Chaplin made “The Tramp” in the area.

In 1956 the five towns incorporated as the City of Fremont, named for explorer John C. Frémont. Over the next few decades, subdivisions replaced many of the farms and orchards. High-tech companies arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in Warm Springs, and in 2010 Tesla bought the former NUMMI auto plant.

The original towns

Centerville

Centerville began in the 1850s as a farming and trading town around today’s Fremont and Peralta boulevards. Its historic core includes the Center Theater and the Centerville train depot, where ACE and Capitol Corridor trains stop. Garden apartment complexes line the main roads and the edges of the town center, and the ranch-home neighborhoods described below make up most of the rest.

Niles

Niles sits where Niles Canyon opens onto the flatlands, with the hills on one side and Alameda Creek and the Quarry Lakes on the other, and that separation gives it a small-town feel. Its seven-block business district along Niles Boulevard is known for antique shops in turn-of-the-century buildings, facing the railroad, the town plaza and the 1901 depot. Nearby streets have houses from the 1880s to the 1930s, from Victorians to California bungalows, while neighborhoods such as Niles Glen and Canyon Heights date from the mid-1900s on. The historic Niles Canyon railroad and an annual antique fair both draw visitors.

Irvington

Irvington’s historic center is Five Corners, where Fremont Boulevard, Washington Boulevard and Bay Street meet. The old Irvington district includes the Leal Theater, the Hiram Davis Home and the Odd Fellows Hall, all on the city’s register of historic resources. Most of the surrounding area is residential, with neighborhoods from the 1950s through the 1980s and apartment complexes along the main roads near the town center.

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose grew up around the mission, whose historic church and museum still anchor a small business district along Mission Boulevard. Palm trees planted in the 1920s line Mission and Washington boulevards, and Victorian-era homes and bungalows stand near the old core, giving it what the city calls a semi-rural village feel. The area is also home to Ohlone College, the Olive Hyde Gallery and the Museum of Local History.

Warm Springs

Warm Springs was settled around 1860 as Harrisburgh and renamed in 1885 for the natural hot springs that made it an early health resort. It stayed agricultural until the 1960s and 1970s, when subdivisions replaced farms and orchards. West of I-680 the neighborhoods are suburban with a mix of housing types, while areas east of the freeway are less dense and resemble Mission San Jose’s hillside neighborhoods. Newer townhomes and condos south of Kato Road replaced old industrial sites, and the Warm Springs/South Fremont BART station sits in the middle of the Warm Springs Innovation District.

Neighborhoods around the old towns

Glenmoor, Cabrillo and Brookvale

These residential neighborhoods sit within the larger Centerville area, which runs from I-880 east to Alameda Creek. Most of the area was built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on former farms and orchards, with blocks of one-story ranch homes on winding streets and cul-de-sacs. Each has a neighborhood shopping center that shares its name, and the Quarry Lakes are along the area’s eastern edge.

Parkmont and City Center

Parkmont lies just north of City Center, the downtown district around the Fremont BART station and the Fremont Hub shopping center, with Central Park close by. Central Fremont has the city’s densest housing, with large apartment, townhome and condominium complexes alongside single-family streets. It also has Fremont’s biggest concentration of shops, offices and medical buildings, including Washington Hospital and Kaiser Permanente, and city leaders have worked for decades to turn it into a true downtown.

Grimmer and Sundale

Much of Irvington is residential, including Sundale, Sundale South, 28 Palms and the single-family subdivisions around Grimmer Boulevard and Blacow Road. Many were built in the decade after incorporation, when wide boulevards with parkway strips and frontage roads were laid out for cars. Grimmer Park, Blacow Park and Irvington Community Park serve the area.

Ardenwood, Northgate and the Lakes and Birds

North Fremont was farmland for most of the 20th century. Ardenwood was master-planned in the late 1970s on the former Patterson Ranch and has more than 5,000 homes, many of them small-lot houses, patio homes and townhomes, plus a technology park and Ardenwood Historic Farm. North Fremont also includes Northgate and the “Lakes and Birds” area off Alvarado Boulevard, where a 1960s–70s neighborhood named its streets after lakes and a 1980s one named them after birds.

Mission Hills and the hillside neighborhoods

Around the old mission are neighborhoods such as Mission Hills, Weibel, Vineyard Hills and Kimber/Gomes. Much of this area was built in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and homes here tend to be larger than elsewhere in Fremont, often with Mission or Mediterranean-inspired designs and views of the hills or across the city to the bay. Properties in the city’s hillside zoning district fall under extra rules on grading, retaining walls and drainage.

Getting around

Fremont has two BART stations: Fremont, in the center of the city, and Warm Springs/South Fremont, the southernmost station in Alameda County, with trains continuing south to Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose. ACE trains between Stockton and San Jose and Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor both stop at the Centerville station on Fremont Boulevard. AC Transit runs local buses in Fremont and service across the Dumbarton Bridge to Stanford and Palo Alto. Interstates 880 and 680 both run through the city, and Highway 84 crosses the Dumbarton Bridge to the Peninsula and also winds through Niles Canyon toward Sunol.

Parks and open space

Central Park, created in 1960, includes 83-acre Lake Elizabeth, with boating, a water park, a dog park and a community center. East of the city, the peaks of Mission Peak Regional Preserve rise steeply, with trailheads at Ohlone College and Stanford Avenue. Near the bay, Coyote Hills Regional Park, dedicated in 1967, mixes marshland with grassy hills and has exhibits on Ohlone life. Ardenwood Historic Farm shows life on a family farm between 1890 and 1930. Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area was built around old gravel quarries along Alameda Creek, and the Alameda Creek Regional Trail runs about 12 miles from the mouth of Niles Canyon to the bay.

Selling an older Fremont home

Because so much of Fremont was built between the 1950s and the 1980s, homes of that age often need updated kitchens, windows, roofs or electrical systems by the time they’re sold. Hillside homes can add questions about grading, drainage and retaining walls.

If you’re settling a parent’s estate or have already moved away, we can buy the house as-is, with no repairs or cleaning. Closing can happen in as little as 3 days once title is clear, or later on your schedule. See our Fremont page, or read about selling an inherited house or selling when you’re relocating. A cash offer is usually lower than what an updated home could bring on the open market, so it’s worth comparing with a traditional listing before you decide.

Sources

General information about California rules as of October 3, 2026, not legal, tax or financial advice. Laws change and every situation is different, so check the details with an attorney, CPA or other professional.