This article has been revised to correct errors regarding what is being offered to the city, which buildings the city owns and why a previous project has not been built.
BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
Laurene Powell Jobs’s real estate company is offering some of its land to the city of East Palo Alto for a new city hall, library and police station.
Council on Tuesday (July 29) directed City Manager Melvin Gaines to negotiate with Sycamore Real Estate, Powell Jobs’ company, which owns 52 acres in town. Sycamore representatives proposed to the city to build on 10 acres of its land in a conversation, according to Assistant City Manager Shiri Klima.
City officials had previously approved plans for a four-story, 102,614-square-foot building at 2535 Pulgas Ave., which Sycamore was planning to build for the nonprofit JobTrain, which trains people who are looking for new careers, and the Emerson Collective, a nonprofit that Powell Jobs also heads. But JobTrain backed out, prompting Sycamore to offer the full building for public use, according to Assistant City Manager Shiri Klima.
If the city moves forward with this plan, the 2535 Pulgas Ave. building would include a new library, City Hall and other “community spaces,” Klima said. A 20,000 square-foot police department would be built separately.
For years, the city has been looking for a place to have a city center, or at the very least, a permanent police station and library, estimated to cost $140 million respectively, according to Klima.
The city currently rents City Hall and the library at 2415 University Avenue, the police department’s buildings at 141 and 219 Demeter Street and the corporation yard at 150 Tara Road. The city owns a building at 1960 Tate St. that houses the Public Works and Community and Economic Development departments.
A multi-use athletic field and park
If the city accepts the offer, a group of anonymous donors has offered to pay $30.5 million for a track and soccer field at 2555 Pulgas Ave. that would be used by the East Palo Alto Greyhounds youth athletic program, according to Klima.
The park will be a multi-use field for football, soccer and Little League baseball. It will also have an eight-lane track around the field and surrounding it will be a children’s playground, an exercise plaza, two pickleball courts, half a basketball court and a picnic area.
Private donors who were not disclosed will cover $30.35 million of the park’s cost. The city will be responsible for maintaining the park.
What Powell Jobs wants
These proposals and donations come after Powell Jobs submitted plans in October to build three buildings at 391 Demeter St. The buildings would have a total of 299 apartments, with 11,009 square feet allocated for community space and 5,926 square feet for amenities. The proposal is under review according to the city’s website.
The report from Klima ahead of the council meeting makes no mention of the 391 Demeter proposal, which Klima says is unrelated to the City Hall project.
Powell Jobs previously proposed in 2020 to have 260 homes, 1.3 million square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of retail space.
The housing was planned to go near the University Village neighborhood, with the office space being built closer to Bay Road. There have been no updates on that project since it was reviewed by the Planning Commission in June 2021.
Sycamore Real Estate, a company owned by the widow of the Apple co-founder, who according to Forbes with worth $14 billion, purchased the large swath of land in August 2018. Emerson Collective began working with the city in 1997 through College Track, a college completion program for students. Graduates often told College Track about difficulties finding jobs and housing within East Palo Alto.
When the city created its Ravenswood Business District, Emerson asked the city how to add housing, recreation and jobs to the area. The city told Emerson at the time that, because of the multiple landowners in the area, seeing the plan to fruition would be difficult, leading to the purchase of the 52 acres.
A bribe by any other name.
It doesnt sound like a bribe at sll. She was planning to build something to train people for employment but the city sewers are screwed up and she cannot complete this philanthropic project so she plans to give most of the land to the city, built up?
Isn’t she the White Knight that East Palo Alto needs to solve its problems. And she won’t ask for anything in return except the first born of every family.
We shouldn’t be too quick to cast a negative judgment. Parts of it actually sounds pretty nice to me …multi-use field for football, soccer and Little League baseball with eight-lane track around the field. And playground, exercise plaza, two pickleball courts, half a basketball court and a picnic area. My only gripe would be no tennis court. I guess pickleball is in vogue these days but epa has no tennis court and it would be really nice if there was at least one tennis court.
I am completely opposed to the project because 2 pickleball courts are extremely unsatisfactory. It should be 8 courts or nothing at all!
A lovely gesture to the the City of East Palo Alto. Because of the cite’s proximity to the Bay, sea rise and global warming, is there a long term danger from high tides and flooding to this project without additional expenses to the City for mitigation?
Steve Jobs didn’t approve of the showiness of charitable donations. If you read the Walter Isaacson bio, he believed his greatest contribution to society would be through innovation and building successful products at Apple, which he saw as a form of creating value and jobs. He also expressed dislike for the jargon associated with professional philanthropy, something his widow’s foundation is full of.
Oh, my, the naiveté is strong here. Of course there are strings attached. But what a crazy thing to expect given that East Palo Alto has donors of such a scale every year. And they all demand nothing in return. The worst part is that this will benefit… wait for it… the town! Oh, but this is terrible, we must stop it! It is a bribe!!
Yikes. City of EPA getting bought out. We used to have respect for ourselves. But, oh, look, not all hoarders of wealth are bad….. I guess we forgive Sobrato/Amazon and CZI for their shortcomings, too? We’re a joke.
It just shows you that the Jobs widow will spend ridiculous amounts of money to get her pet projects through. We ought to be circumspect and know what she expects in return for her generosity. Our barely literate council members have been fooled before (Amazon comes to mind) and now every scammer knows they’re an easy mark.
When they started talking about this at Tuesday’s council meeting, the councilmember’s eyes lit up thinking about how all that money sloshing around was going to stick to their fingers. They’re thinking about that easy job Facebook gave to Lisa Gauthier when they wanted East Palo Alto to stop fighting their Willow project.
Don’t forget how Meta/Facebook funded Cecilia Taylor’s nonprofit, essentially becoming her employer, while she was deciding on FB’s Willow Village project.