SAND HILL ROAD: Survey looks at shopping center options

Stanford University sponsored a phone survey last week that sought to gauge local opinion about the revenue-generating arm of the Sand Hill Road development: the shopping center. The survey, described in detail last Friday to the Weekly by an interviewee, asked how residents would feel about the Sand Hill Road development if the proposed 160,000-square-foot shopping center expansion were scaled down to 80,000 or 50,000 square feet and if the retail expansion was postponed until after the year 2005.

Larry Horton, director of government and community relations at Stanford, confirmed that Stanford conducted the poll of about 400 residents but strongly reaffirmed the university's position that it needs to expand by the full 160,000 square feet in order to proceed with the entire package of Sand Hill Road developments. He declined to offer the results of the survey or explain how they may impact Stanford's strategy in pursuing approval of the Sand Hill projects.

But critics of the shopping center expansion will likely jump on the survey as an indication of more flexibility on Stanford's part than it has previously suggested.

Horton said, however, that the survey is nothing more than a means of understanding the range of public opinion on the project.

"Getting information about attitudes to help us understand community views and impressions is very important, but just because we are getting information doesn't mean that we are going to change plans," Horton said.

He noted that Stanford had conducted at least one other poll of community views relating to the Sand Hill Road development. "What we've learned from (polls) is that our perceptions (about community attitudes) have been correct," Horton said.

In addition to questions about scaling down and delaying the expansion, those surveyed were asked if they had heard about the Feb. 17 closing of the Palo Alto Square Theater, a venue managed by Landmark Theaters, and how they would feel about the Sand Hill Road projects if a Landmark theater were added to the shopping center.

The survey included the following question:

I'm going to read a list of possible features of the Sand Hill Road projects. Tell me whether you would be much less likely, somewhat less likely, somewhat more likely or much more likely to support the project for each of these features: Expanding the amount of retail space at the Stanford Shopping Center by 160,000 square feet

(Making) 1/4 of the rental housing low-income housing

Expanding the retail space by 80,000 square feet

The addition of 620 parking spaces at the shopping center

The city of Palo Alto saving $12 million in rent . . . for El Camino Park

Expanding the retail space by 50,000 square feet

Expanding retail only after the year 2005

Expanding the retail space only for medium-priced stores not higher-priced exclusive stores

Leasing space for a Landmark Theater at the shopping center.

Respondents were then asked which of three items was most important to them: no retail expansion at the shopping center until 2005, finding space at the shopping center for a Landmark Theater, or limiting new retail to only medium-priced retail stores.

Kay Ritchey, a Palo Alto resident who was also polled on Thursday night, was told the survey was being conducted by the Colorado-based firm Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy, but her interviewer wouldn't confirm Stanford had paid for the survey.

Early in the planning process, Stanford officials had considered the idea of locating a theater at the shopping center. The most popular location at the time was the former Saks 5th Avenue store next to Nordstrom, where Andronico's Market and an expanded Crate & Barrel are scheduled to open.

Horton said traffic impacts could be minimized by adding a cinema at the shopping center, and the plan "could have some positive benefits" for shopping center merchants, attracting shoppers in the evenings.

"There are ways of arranging using parking spaces at essentially dead times, off-peak times," Horton said.

In its current form, the Sand Hill proposal calls for increasing the size of the shopping center by 12 percent, adding 616 parking spaces for a total of 6,366 and providing direct access to Macy's and Bloomingdale's from three new parking structures on Quarry Road via elevated bridges.

Stanford has long argued that it needs the entire 160,000 square foot expansion in order to pay for the road improvements and make the Sand Hill Road proposals work.

"We think the expansion of the shopping center by the 12 percent that's in our application is really very important to keeping the shopping center dynamic and vital," Horton said.

Horton said the survey had been drawn up and approved in the two days following the Jan. 28 announcement by Landmark Theaters officials that they had not been allowed to renew their lease at the Palo Alto Square cinema on El Camino Real near Page Mill Road. The survey was conducted on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 30.

The Palo Alto Square is slated to close on Feb. 17. In what has been described as purely a business decision, the Chicago-based Equity Office which manages the Stanford-owned property, decided not to renew the lease. Plans for the two-screen complex have not been released.

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