March 17, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

South Palo Alto girds up for new projects

by Don Kazak

Like letting a genie out of a bottle, the end of a moratorium on development in south Palo Alto has released a number of projects.

Several large developments are lined up for city approval, now that the nine-month Charleston Corridor moratorium has been lifted.

"The cork had to come out of the bottle here as soon as the moratorium was over," said Michael Griffin, chair of the city's Planning and Transportation Commission.

Together, the projects will help transform south Palo Alto, but they could also add to traffic headaches that already frustrate residents.

The south part of Palo Alto is being targeted for development by serendipity and circumstance.

Terman reopened as a middle school, adding more traffic to the Charleston Corridor and forcing the Jewish Community Center to find a new home. Hyatt is planning to rebuild its aging hotel and add housing units. Albertson's is considering replacing its aging grocery store at Alma Plaza. And now the Elk's Lodge wants to sell part of its property for housing to make enough money to build a smaller, more modern headquarters.

"There are a number of sites ... ripe for redevelopment," said City Councilwoman Dena Mossar.

Together the projects mean an intense development in one relatively confined part of town with a lot of uncertainty about the impacts that will be created -- more cars on the streets, more children in the schools, more demand on other services.

"We have a concern about the total number of projects," said Deborah Ju, president of the Charleston Meadows Association.

An added concern is the changes that have been approved for Charleston and Arastradero roads themselves, including narrowing about half the 2.2 mile-corridor from four through lanes to two, may produce its own uncertainties. But the first part of that trial won't begin until June 2005, by the city's current estimate, after the development projects under consideration are likely to be approved.

John Ellman, a longtime resident of the corridor who criticized the city's decision to narrow the road, welcomes the new projects. "I think they should go full-speed ahead," he said

The redevelopment efforts that are kicking off may be a harbinger of what's yet to come for the greater Palo Alto area. Partially because of aging commercial buildings dating from the 1950s and 1960s that have outlived their usefulness, a lot more projects are ahead.

Developer Jim Baer is a consultant now to 20 to 25 such projects in the larger area. "The magnitude of dollars (replacing older buildings) is hugely significant," he said. He thinks it's the start of a trend, not just for south Palo Alto.

Key projects ahead in south Palo Alto:

* The Hyatt Rickey's Hotel project has been redesigned from adding 302 housing units to adding about 200. The resulting hotel will also be smaller than the 320-room hotel initially envisioned.

The new hotel/housing plan is winning cautious neighborhood acceptance, in sharp contrast to the 10 neighborhood associations that came out against the former plan.

The Hyatt plan is scheduled to go before the City Council for preliminary review April 13.

* The Campus for Jewish Life, a large community and recreation center, is proposed for the 12-acre former Sun Microsystems site at Charleston Road near Fabian Way. The campus will also include 165 low-rent apartments for seniors.

Four acres of that site are being sold to a San Francisco nonprofit group, BRIDGE housing, which plans to build 230 units of housing -- 160 affordable condominiums and 70 low-rent apartments for seniors.

Those plans are tentatively scheduled to go before the City Council for preliminary review May 3.

There is no neighborhood comment yet because there are no actual plans before the city. But there was some initial alarm when BRIDGE said it was considering breaking the city's 50-foot height limit.

"We're still working on the site plan and having it conform to city regulations," said Lydia Tan of BRIDGE.

* Rebuilding Alma Plaza and replacing the aging Albertson's grocery store had been the farthest along of all three projects when the moratorium was put in place last April.

But Albertson's has now unexpectedly asked for a 45 to 60-day delay in consideration of its plans, which had been scheduled for the March 15 City Council meeting.

The Albertson's delay came as a surprise to city officials and to developer John McNellis, who represents Alberston's for its Alma Plaza effort. McNellis said it was a corporate decision to delay things for now as the company reviews its expansion plans.

"We're still continuing to look at the plans," said Quyen Ha, public affairs senior coordinator for Albertson's, who did not give any further reason for the requested delay.

Albertson's has a proposal to rebuild the aging grocery store at Alma Plaza and replace it with a more modern, 29,000-square-foot store. The initial plan called for a 37,000-square-foot store, but that ran into stiff neighborhood opposition and was scaled back.

The current Albertson's plan still faces strong resistance from the adjacent neighborhood.

The new Alma Plaza proposal greatly reduces the amount of small retail shops. "We believe there should be a balance between the anchor store and small retail," said Jay Hammer, a Ramona Street resident.

There is no new date for when the Alma Plaza plan will be reviewed by the City Council.

The Elk's Lodge, located next to Hyatt Rickey's, is about to send out a request for proposals from developers for its 8.2-acre site.

Redevelopment of the Hewlett-Packard Co. owned 27-acre property at San Antonio Road and Central Expressway in Mountain View is now under consideration. Just across the street from Palo Alto, what happens there will be of keen interest to Palo Alto.

HP has just entered into a yet-unspecified contract with a large housing developer, Toll Brothers, for likely development of the property, which used to be the Mayfield Mall Shopping Center years ago.

Through a quirk of city boundaries, 4.5 acres of the former Hewlett-Packard/Mayfield Mall site is within Palo Alto city boundaries, so anything Mountain View does to approve redevelopment of the site needs Palo Alto approval, too.

Grace Rauh, a reporter for the Weekly's sister paper, the Mountain View Voice, contributed to this story. Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com

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