Bohannon office/hotel project too big? Not necessarily, Menlo Park City Council says

Congratulations to our council for accurately gauging the sentiment of the public and moving forward on this project. Now let's hope they don't try to stop it on the bogus grounds that car trips are part of its carbon footprint.

The Council blew it. The developer knows how to play the game - ask for more than you want so you have room to negotiate. The Council basically just said OK.
For all the development, very little produces revenue for the city and there are huge impacts. The project should be smaller and the community should get a lot of benefit for all the windfall of this giveaway.

How can the City move forward if we stay stuck in this rut? All one has to look at is El Camino and see the number of "new businesses" or better yet the number of buildings that have been vacant for how many years. If the City wants to generate revenue, what will it take to get a revenue generating business to come to Menlo Park. Stop putting up so many road blocks. Sometimes to get what we need and want we must compromise.

Bill - the current rut is largely due to the slump in the credit and real estate markets. Some major projects have been approved along El Camino, but the largest problem is Stanford property and they have stated their intention not to do anything for several years.
This thread is about the Bohannon project. Only a small portion of this enormous project will generate sales tax or hotel tax revenue for the city. Other cities, including our own, have approved hotel projects without so much other other buildings and impacts. Why approve this one? It isn't worth it as proposed.

Annex unincorporated Redwood City and elect Paul Collacchi to the City Council.