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Part of a team of national developers and builders, architect Randy Popp is paying particular attention to Monroe Park neighbors as he designs the four-story hotel and 28 residences proposed to replace Palo Alto Bowl.
He lives there, approximately 400 yards away on Monroe Drive.
This sensitivity won him, and the project, points with the notoriously critical Palo Alto Architectural Review Board Thursday morning during a preliminary, no-vote, review.
“You’ve got a good start here. I’m a little surprised at the fitness (of the application),” board member Judith Wasserman said.
Popp, of The Steinberg Group, along with SRM Development, R.D. Merrill Company, TMH Hotels and Barry Swenson Builder, is proposing a 178-room hotel fronting El Camino Real with 28 three-story duplexes and single-family houses behind.
The 3.6-acre property at 4301 and 4329 El Camino Real currently houses a Motel 6, Palo Alto Bowl and several small stores.
Barry Swenson Builder purchased the property in May 2007, with plans to build a hotel and possibly senior housing.
Those plans evolved, through meetings with the city and neighbors, to a four-story hotel centered around a large oak tree. Vehicles would enter only at the south end of the property, near the Cesano Court housing, and park in a two-story underground garage.
Residents would access the site from Monroe Drive. The townhouses are aligned in three rows of three-story, contemporary residences, facing central walking paths with narrow shared alleys at the rear for vehicles.
And at the northeast edge of the property, developers are proposing a bike path connecting with Cesano Court to the south.
The ARB embraced the bike path, but expressed concern about a thick “sound wall” proposed to shield two Monroe Drive residents from the path.
Most developers and residents are trying to close existing bike paths, board member David Solnick said.
“This is one that’s opening up. That’s fantastic,” Solnick said.
But sound walls are for freeways, not for bike paths, he added.
“Bike noise isn’t all that bad,” Chairwoman Clare Malone Pritchard said.
The commission also urged Popp to ensure the building and landscaping is pedestrian-friendly along El Camino Real and to enhance connections between the rows of residences.
Two neighbors attended the meeting, Linnea Wickstrom and Anne Harrington.
Both thanked the developers for meeting with them.
“Almost anything that will go in there would be an improvement to what’s there now,” Harrington said.
Wickstrom urged the ARB to focus on the project’s architecture and avoid creating another “Arbor Ugly,” the name neighbors have given Arbor Real, the new housing at the site of the former Hyatt Rickey’s along El Camino Real.
Thursday’s hearing was only preliminary; Popp and the project team will need to return to gain the ARB’s approval.
In other business:
• Designs for the Coronet Motel at 2455 El Camino Real have significantly improved since March, the Architectural Review Board agreed Thursday morning.
Owners Hans and Sarah Brender have switched architects and are aiming for a simple design with an environmental focus, architect Larry Mock with San Francisco’s Mock/Wallace architects said.
“This is a giant leap forward and actually gives us something we can work with,” board member Judith Wasserman said.
The site has been a budget one- and two-story motel since 1951.
The owners hope to add four rooms and remodel the lobby, manager’s quarters and exterior.
They also plan to remove all windows on the rear of the building, a change board members challenged.
The board did like the idea of adding a plant-covered trellis to shade the parking lot.
“I think the project is going to get approved, just probably not today,” board member David Solnick said.
Interesting how people in Palo Alto always decry “nastiness” and “name calling” etc. However when something appears in PA that they does not please their eye, these poobahs of civility and politeness are always waiting with a derogatory name.
In the past (and still now) we get the labeling of people’s homes as “monster homes” and “taco bell homes” as two examples.
Now those that do not like the Arbor Real project have chosen to call it “arbor ugly” as reported above.
Sounds to me like a double standard is in play here for some residents
It’s funny how the same residents who are now decrying Arbor Real as “arbor ugly” also opposed the expansion of Hyatt Rickeys. Palo Alto could of had a larger, nicer Hyatt Rickeys, but NO! A small whining bunch just had to oppose that project and let it end up as town homes… which they also dislike.
I just have to laugh at how the ARB insists on making the front pedestrian friendly. Pedestrian friendly on a state highway? It’s almost suicide trying to cross El Camino at some crosswalks.
So I hope the hotel is big enough to put a bowling alley in.
The PA Bowl is one of the few fun safe hangouts for PA young people. It is used, particularly in summer, by hundreds if not thousands of kids. My kids have been there on field trip to learn about balls and ramps, birthday parties, Halloween parties, teen/youth events and so on. It will be missed if it goes.
Give us back our bowling alley, please.
As you may learn from reading this and other stories, nothing ever satisfies the ARB. They have been given too much power and seem to enjoy delaying projects by micromanaging plans. It sounds like Ms wasserman is disappointed by the proposal being so good–it gives them less leeway to throw their muscle around.
I can imagine what would happen to a proposal by Eichler or Frank Lloyd Wright by this board and self-important “architects”.
Just to set the record straight on the mention of Hyatt Rickey’s: Hyatt proposed replacing a 344-room hotel with a 320-room conference hotel and 300 housing units, leading to the opposition of 10 neighborhood associations. City officials were stunned when Hyatt pulled the plug on its plans in 2004 instead of trying to work with the city on a revised plan.
I have noticed that the ARB always criticizes for the sake of criticizing. They must appear relevant and needed but sometimes I just wish they’d go away.
I agree with Parent about the postives of a bowling alley. It’s challenging, fun, inexpensive and air-conditioned. If the Hyatt were not torn down because of a minority of nay-sayers, we wouldn’t need another hotel. Are all the hotels at maximum capacity? I doubt it, especially with the state of the economy. Do we need more ugly townhouses, I doubt it. The only people who benefit from this is the developers. Speak up now, Palo Altans, or we will lose the bowling alley just as lost the Hyatt.
re: Humerous & “Pedestrian friendly on a state highway? It’s almost suicide trying to cross El Camino at some crosswalks.”
All of Monroe Park is schooled in Los Altos and it is imparative that we make that evident and try to create a Pedestrian Friendly way to get to school. Our children have to face it every day, twice a day.
Thank you for pointing out publicly how very dangerous it is, we hope such comments will ensure us an even more Pedestrian Friendly route.
How about a pedestrian bridge?
Pedestrian bridge! What a great idea ! I will be sure to bring it up.
Thanks
Better yet, a tunnel like the Homer pedestrian crossing.
^^ Great idea! If only the palo alto process won’t kill it.
Remember that Hyatt’s expansionary plan took 7 years of planning and still nothing came out. This new hotel is not even an expansion… it’s starting from scratch. Both the pedestrian bridge and hotel will probably be things we never see in our lifetime.
A tunnel/bridge would be nice, any changes to El Caminor must be approved by CalTrans.
And, who is going to pay for this pedestrian bridge or tunnel? The Homer Street tunnel cost between $6 – $7 Million paid for mostly by the State when the State had money. The State doesn’t have the money now so forget it.
You can ask for it now and perhaps in 10 years time it will reach the top of the list. It took that long to negotiate the Homer underpass.
“Are all the hotels at capacity level?” No – but they don’t have to be to be very profitable. Also, the hotel tax contributes to Palo Alto’s revenue base and the City needs the money.
Bowling Alleys are money losers now; in fact most commercial recreational activities for children are unprofitable. When land is so valuable it doesn’t make economic sense to keep a Bowling Alley for kids even if it is air-conditioned!!
This is all about “Destination Palo Alto” the Council initiative to get more visitors to Palo Alto, and for this we need more hotels.
To TJ: Following your reasoning, parks are also money losers. Should we destroy them and build more housing just as we did with the schools. Remember Ortega, Hoover, Crescent Park, Ross Road and others. Now the PAUSD is asking for money for schools but it didn’t ask the voters for permission to destroy the schools to make room for mega-houses. When the bowling alley is gone, it’s gone. Does every venture have to be a money maker?
“This is all about “Destination Palo Alto” the Council initiative to get more visitors to Palo Alto, and for this we need more hotels.”
Ah, yes. Faith-based planning: If we build them hotels, they will come. Tourism is tanking over high energy costs and Palo Altans want to build hotels. I don’t care if developers lose money, but abandoned hotels are super eyesores.
I too wonder what kind of place this City is becoming? The bowling alley is going and have you noticed the parks are so uninteresting now kids are bored with them. The parks used to have slides and those merry-go-rounds that were kid powered. Those are gone now in the interest of avoiding lawsuits against the City and replaced with those generic climbing structures you see everywhere.
TJ, what is the cost, in terms of lost childhood experiences, of not having a diverse landscape of engaging, unstructured, activities for our children?
Destination Palo Alto!!
TJ
PA Bowl is a reason for out of towners to come to Palo Alto. Yes, it isn’t a hotel, but people do come here to bowl. It isn’t only a kids place, but there are many adult leagues and many seniors get their regular exercise from bowling and these are not all PA residents.
Maybe, we could market PA bowl as a reason for PA to be a destination.
A bowling alley is not the kind of place that we should have in Palo Alto. we do not want big box stores, large supermarkets and certainly not bowling alleys–Palo Alto has a certain mystique–we need expensive stores, fancy restaraunts and malls like the Stanford Shopping Center.
if we want athletic events in town, they should be the proper kind–like the tour of california bike race–where the people that know what is best for our city can wear their new lycra bicycle suits.
I too am disappointed that the bowling alley is going away. The benefits of living in Palo Alto versus the neighboring communities all seem to be disappearing.
CBlasey, you live in Palo Alto for the bowling alley??
The bowling alley does offer a lot of fun for all and is an old Palo Alto icon. However, – the hotels are often at full capacity, even the developer of the new project had to stay in Freemont on one of his visits as it was the closest place with a vacancy.
The Bowl Co. is looking for a new location – I think Palo Alto square would be excellent, has any one ever known the underground parking to be at capacity there.
Residents around the bowling alley have suffered imessurably due to the BAR at the Bowling Ally and will be only too happy to see it go.
Five nights a week from midnight to beyond 3:00 am drunks poor out of the Bowling Alley and continue their party en’volume in the parking lot with every thing from blasting music to screaming, fighting, vomiting, car honking and the ever pleasant screeching tires and doughnuts. In 22 years of soliciting the police for assistance, residents have been told that the P A Police have other priorities at that hour. This does over shadow but is not isolated by the ever present attraction to homeless residents who set up every thing from shopping cart encampments to vehicle homes to tents and actual campers. The motel 6 residents also take enjoyment of the area as an easy access DOG PARK with no obligation to pick up their crap. So, bowling alley does provide so much fun for those who come and play and then get to leave – however, there well may be a very much better location for it in Palo Alto. The residents here were here before bowling and would like to remain here in some long awaited resemblance of peace. Just to sleep through the night without the car radio base and yelling bouncing one out of bed several nights a week will be like going on vacation somewhere.
Beyond ALL that, the bowling alley and the Thai Garden allow their employees to live on sight for free, one of whom lives in a camper with three dogs who protest their own isolation at all hours including 2:00 am and will bark endlessly prompting a local chorus of neighborhood dogs at any hour but most often after midnight.
Palo Alto does desperately need a place for decent recreation, however I for one will be happy when it is a different place where residents will not suffer.
I too hope the Bowl will relocate in Palo Alto. It is a great family activity (during the day).
Parent of Bored Kids, we must be living in alternate universes, our neighborhood parks are busy, busy, busy full of laughing, playing kids, many of whom are engaged in imaginative play. Just because a slide is there, doesn’t mean the kids can’t (or don’t) use their imaginations to play for hours on end.
Sounds like your kids may be very social and missing out on unstructured SOCIAL activities with lots of other kids, which is something happening these days because there aren’t, as you point out, enough unstructured kid “hang outs”. I sympathize – I feel like there aren’t enough unstructured grown-up “hang outs”! If that’s the case for your kids, the play structures (or lack of them) won’t solve their boredom.
We have a neighbor who spends a lot of time with the kids out front, inviting the rest of the neighborhood parents and kids to just come by and hang out. That might be one approach to solve the boredom.
My kids haven’t had that problem, because rocks, grass, and dirt combined with imagination seem just as entertaining as play structures – and the park is fun because it has the added benefit of play structures AND rocks, sand and grass and dirt…
Destination Palo Alto! What is there in Palo Alto to attract the average tourist? By “average tourist” I do not mean executives of high-tech companies who are in town to negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal.
Does Palo Alto have a theater district like New York’s Broadway? No.
Does Palo Alto have scenic vistas and cable cars like San Francisco? No.
Does Palo Alto have amusement parks and beaches like southern California? No.
What is in Palo Alto that is going to attract tourists the world over here like a magnet? Stanford University? Stanford football? Chef Chu’s? (Chef Chu’s is good but not THAT good.)
Face it, Palo Alto is part university town and part bedroom community. Tourist destination? I don’t think so.