BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Managing Editor
The city has received seven proposals from developers to build public housing on downtown parking lots, including two that call for buildings possibly as tall as eight stories. A couple of others included parking structures to replace the lost parking spaces.
City Council’s plan to redevelop the parking lots on the lots between Santa Cruz and Oak Grove avenues into public housing has been hotly debated by residents, merchants, property owners and downtown shoppers with petitions and hours-long public comments at a Jan. 15 council meeting. The number of parking spaces on the three lots total 556. The city hopes to get 345 to 483 apartments, with rents subsidized by public funds.
Council had voted at that meeting to issue a “Request for Qualifications” or RFQ, on Jan. 29 for interested developers to submit their ideas for the lots. The RFQs don’t call for solid development plans, but rather are early project proposals. The RFQs were due on March 31, and since then, residents have been clamoring to find out what developers are proposing.
The city released the proposals Friday night (April 4). Here’s a summary with links to the actual proposal:
Alliant Development’s proposal would consist of 345 apartments across three buildings and 696 parking spaces. One of the buildings, proposed for the parking lot along Oak Grove between Crane and Chestnut streets, would be set aside for senior housing. The proposal also includes plans to have a park in front of Coffeebar. Alliant is the developer behind the redevelopment of the former Flood School campus at 320 Sheridan Drive into teacher housing.
Eden Housing is proposing 344 apartments — 120 being set aside for seniors. The buildings would be between five and six stories tall. The project proposal says there could be a five-story, 515-space parking garage on Parking Plaza 1, which is the large lot behind Stacks and Sultana. But because Eden is a nonprofit, says it would not be able to raise the money needed to build the parking lot. Eden Housing is the developer behind 525 East Charleston Road in Palo Alto, which will provide 50 apartments for people with developmental disabilities.
MidPen Housing has two preliminary proposals — one where there would be 518 parking spaces and 345 apartments across three buildings that are six to eight stories tall. The other option would have slightly shorter buildings — ranging between five to six stories — where there would be 258 apartments and 514 parking spaces. MidPen has completed many projects in the area, including Firehouse Square at 1300 El Camino Real in Belmont.
Path Ventures, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, is proposing 400-450 apartments, with 25% reserved for people with special needs and permanent housing for the homeless. Their proposal doesn’t provide a firm number as to how many parking spaces their eventual development would include but suggests sharing the number of parking spaces between public parking and residential.
Presidio Bay Ventures, which owns the Springline development at 1300 El Camino in Menlo Park, is proposing to build 345 apartments across three five-story buildings. It is proposing to include 580 parking spaces, with the possibility of a five-story stand-alone garage built along University Drive during the beginning of construction. The proposal also includes about 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floors of two of the buildings, one along Oak Grove and the other along Maloney Lane.
Related Companies of California in association with Alta Housing Corp. is proposing 314-345 apartments and 506 parking spaces across three buildings that will span between four and eight stories. Most of Parking Plaza 1 would be reserved for a parking garage. Alta has completed three projects in Palo Alto including Wilton Court.
Pacific Companies, based in Idaho, and Sacramento-based West Development Ventures submitted a proposal saying it would develop the parking plazas with modular construction — where much of the building is built off-site. But doesn’t appear to include any information about any potential project.
Council is set to review the proposals at a meeting in May.
Alta housing has been building and managing high quality low income housing for more than 50 years in Palo Alto. It has many many more properties than the 3 mentioned in this article.
Palo Alto has more affordable housing per capita than any city in Santa Clara County but one. Most all is Alta’s.
I cannot believe what these progressives on the City Council and the YIMBY Coalition that backs and funds them are doing to Menlo Park. Meanwhile Bohannan Drive looks like a shanty town because our police chief doesn’t believe enforcement is the right answer. I guess this is what the homeowners of Menlo Park voted for. You’re going to get everything you deserve people, including crashing property values.