BY DANIEL SCHRAGER
Daily Post Staff Writer
After fighting another developer’s proposed apartment building nearby, the owners of Town and Country Village have submitted plans for a pair of seven-story buildings of their own behind the Palo Alto shopping center.
The developers, Ellis Partners, filed pre-application paperwork with the city last week for 158 apartments at 44 and 88 Encina Ave., spokeswoman Christina Pham Ellis told the Daily Post. Currently, that land is occupied by parking lots behind Town and Country.
In April, council approved a townhouse complex from developer Ed Storm on the same block. Storm first proposed the 70 Encina Ave. building as a five-story, 20-unit complex in 2022, but was asked to lower its height to accommodate Town and Country. Ellis Partners hired a lawyer and architect to fight the project, and council made Storm shrink the plans down to three stories and ten units.
“We feel that added residents and vehicles will likely create an unmanageable parking situation in this already busy location,” Dean Rubinson, director of development for the Ellis Partners, said at an Architectural Review Board hearing in December.
The new Ellis Partners apartments would be located next door, on either side of Storm’s development, just north of Town and Country and across the street from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Palo Alto High School is across the street from Town and Country to the south and Stanford Stadium to the southwest.
The company picked the location because it’s convenient for residents, Ellis Partners Senior Vice President Patrick Flynn said.
“This is an ideal place for new housing — close to schools, shopping, and transit,” Flynn said in a statement. “Building here allows residents to walk for their daily needs, reducing overall traffic.”
The plans includes 165 parking spots for residents and 150 for shoppers across lots on the first three floors of each building, according to documents sent by the city to the Daily Post.
Architectural Review Board member Peter Baltay said in February that Ellis Partners had expressed interest in building housing on the site. Storm said at the time he’d consider merging the buildings in the future.
“The private sector will decide if there’s a way to merge these two properties, which I think there is, but I’m not going to do it under threat of you denying my project, Storm said at the hearing.
Ellis Partners has an appointment with the Palo Alto planning staff Monday to discuss the proposal, Pham Ellis said.
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