How Greenheart complex will transform downtown Menlo Park

Interesting choice of words. "Vibrant Gridlock"

"Interesting choice of words. "Vibrant Gridlock""

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see that phrase anywhere in the article above. Where is it?

Vibrant gridlock = fake news

"Vibrant gridlock = fake news"

Frugal: care to try again with ACTUAL facts?

I read the article about Greenheart with great interest.

In particular, Peter Ohtaki's comment that the development would "jump-start the revitalization of downtown" attracted my attention. I think it's pretty obvious that there are a number of issues with downtown Menlo Park and with the Greenheart Development.

If City Council would like to "revitalize downtown" I would direct their attention to the lack of parking as a first issue. At the moment, the parking situation is appalling and promises to become even more so with the Greenheart Development. Currently, finding a parking spot in downtown Menlo Park is almost impossible at many times of the day. We need a huge amount of additional parking. Secondly, the condition of the existing parking lots is laughable. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to note that Immediate repavement of the lot behind Walgreens is necessary. The current condition is an eyesore and a liability issue because the potholes are so deep it may be possible for small children to drop out of sight if they were to accidently step in one of the potholes. At the very least, immediate repaving is called for.

Secondly, the amount of parking Greenheart proposes to build is sadly inadequate. The Greenheart proposal adds a total of 420,000 sq ft of of apartment, office and retail space, consisting of 83 apartments, 200,000 sq ft of office space, 29,000 sq ft for restaurants/community use and 10,000 sq ft of flexible retail/office space for restaurants and but only 991 parking spots.

I can't believe that the apartments are averaging 2200 sq ft as the reported numbers imply. Greylock partners has reported that they budget 175 - 200 sq ft of office space when funding. Using that assumption, approximately 1000 individuals would be housed in the office space alone. With the assumption of 500 individuals requiring parking space (conservative) , and the assumption of 1.5 cars/household (which seems low given the palatial apartment size calculated), two thirds of the parking spots are already allocated, leaving approximately 300 spots to serve 30,000 sq ft of mixed community use/restaurant/retail/more office space). And given that Greenheart plans to charge for parking, I guess the city is assuming that the rest of the cars will either fit into existing Menlo Park parking or is not foreseeing that a huge number of individuals will be parking on city streets in Atherton or Menlo Park. Clearly, there is a huge need for additional parking which is not being addressed.

If one actually reads the Menlo Park Police Blotter in your esteemed paper, one notes that the increasing number of incidents such as cars being broken into, individuals shoplifting at Safeway (the wine drinking incident in this weeks paper is indeed amusing, but sad) seem to be the result of homeless individuals in downtown Menlo Park. It is sad that people can't afford housing, but it's pretty obvious to me that some of this rising theft issue could be addressed, not only through increased low income housing, but by eliminating the attractiveness of certain parks and "pocket parks" for the homeless and for panhandling. Just yesterday I personally viewed a homeless guy neatly stashing his nightime belongings in the pocket park on Cedar next to Starbucks and covering his possessions with a tarp secured by bungee cords. If one walks around the block from Left Bank to Starbucks back through the parking lot behind Walgreens/or over to Trader Joes, you most likely will be contacted by more than one person panhandling.

So, Dear City Council, if you want to see a "revitalized downtown Menlo Park" I suggest using some of the $2.7 M Greenheart is "gifting" to the city to pave the parking lots, hire a couple of beat patrolmen for downtown Menlo Park, get rid of the crappy outdoor carpeting on Cedar Street, and help resettle the homeless folks in our downtown.

But please quit trying to pull the wool over residents and small business owners eyes by getting The Almanac to publish nonsense about how this development will "help us".

Hi Menlo Voter (and Peter Carpenter)

Sorry! I meant to say that nowhere in the article was the impending "gridlock" (or equivilant) mentioned. Only "Vibrant".

Can't we just all get along and approve that much needed project but make it smaller?

PETER: Have you finally agreed that just north of the underpass there are only two north bound El Camino lanes entering Menlo Park from Palo Alto. (3 lanes is a truly a "fake fact")

The usual naysayers against everything new. There was no traffic from the vacant lots.

" meant to say that nowhere in the article was the impending "gridlock" (or equivilant) mentioned. Only "Vibrant"."

And? So we are to stop any progress because adjacent cities are creating traffic that passes through our city? So, we should stop any progress becasue it might create more traffic? Of course it will create some, but this project is close to public transportation and will not create anything that it might if it wasn't. Also, knowing quite a few millennials, they aren't interested in owning a car, except when they need one for long distance travel. Which means, IF they own a car, it remains parked in the garage until the rare occasion they need it. Otherwise they're walking, using public transportation or ride sharing.

"PETER: Have you finally agreed that just north of the underpass there are only two north bound El Camino lanes entering Menlo Park from Palo Alto. (3 lanes is a truly a "fake fact")

No. Where El Camino passes the Shopping Center and BEFORE it enters Menlo Park there are THREE lanes.

There are THREE Northbound lanes when ECR crosses the bridge and enters into Menlo Park.

This is easily verifiable on Google Earth.

37°26'46.70" N 122°10'13.42" W

Jayne, I've never had any trouble finding parking in one of our downtown lots, especially since I don't mind parking once, then walking around to do my various errands. There's parking up and down all the streets on both sides of Santa Cruz Avenue; how is that not enough for our small downtown area? And I honestly don't recall seeing any big potholes in the lot behind Walgreens, much less any large enough to lose a toddler in.

The homeless man you refer to is named Valon, and he's a very nice guy who used to spend his time on the lawn by the library, serenading passersby with his recorder. I spent about 20 minutes talking with him just today. I'm sure he'd appreciate you saying hi next time you walk by Starbucks.

As for the "crappy" pocket park on Cedar Street, I love seeing it lit up at night and my kids & I were delighted when it was decorated with Christmas trees during the holidays. When the weather's nice, I enjoy seeing people lounging in the chairs and soaking up the sun, and it's really nice to to be able to cross the street there without worrying about being run over by someone in too much of a hurry to respect the pedestrian crossings. It's a surprising little oasis in our downtown, and when I walk by I always silently thank the city employee or City Council member who thought to install it.

Menlo Park certainly has some challenges to overcome ~ and I'm not necessarily a believer in the Greenheart project as the answer to those challenges ~ but I think we can keep in mind our positives and not find negatives everywhere we turn.

Peter, What you say is absolutely true. However the left most lane must turn left, leaving only two for through traffic. An alternative fact. :)



"PETER: Have you finally agreed that just north of the underpass there are only two north bound El Camino lanes entering Menlo Park from Palo Alto. (3 lanes is a truly a "fake fact")

No. Where El Camino passes the Shopping Center and BEFORE it enters Menlo Park there are THREE lanes.

There are THREE Northbound lanes when ECR crosses the bridge and enters into Menlo Park.

This is easily verifiable on Google Earth.

37°26'46.70" N 122°10'13.42" W

Perhaps the developers have already thought about this, but it seems like a great place for Zipcar as increased traffic is an obvious problem

I read this article with sadness but not surprise. Successful developers are clever politicians, more clever than our council.

The negative externalities of this project, specifically traffic, outweigh for me the benefit, specifically 10000 sf of extra shopping. I suspect this is true for most people who have to drive on el Camino anytime around rush hour.

Yet it's clear the council and the reporter in this case have been won over. The article touts free Caltrain passes, leed certification, and solar power as somehow offsetting the real and tangible gridlock problems that high density development causes.

"There will be increased traffic and how we mitigate that is going to be a challenge for staff to figure out," said Ray Mueller. As if it's the staff's job to solve an unsolvable problem.

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[EDITOR'S NOTE: I changed the user's name to Voter 2 to not confuse it with Menlo Voter, a frequent poster on Town Square.]

I'm not opposed to anything new; it's just unfortunate that our only options seem to be "vacant lot that persists indefinitely" or "enormous complex that generates more traffic". It seems there can be no middle ground. And traffic does sometimes seem like it's an unsolvable problem.

Either way, it's happening and I look forward to the end of that vacant lot.

""There will be increased traffic and how we mitigate that is going to be a challenge for staff to figure out," said Ray Mueller."

It is too late to identify mitigation. That has to happen during the EIR review process. The conclusions were that more mitigation were not possible, for analysis of what well may be half or a third of the actual amount of traffic this project will generate. None of the analysis or required mitigation assumed that tech incubators would fill the space with double to triple the number of workers.

It will be nice to have the blight removed, but I dread the unmitigated traffic and the very ugly faux Spanish buildings with oversized arches that look like southern California shopping malls, not like Allied Arts by Pedro de Lemos. The Planning Commission usually does a better job of its design review. It's too late to mitigate that, too.

For many folks, "lack of parking" means they're too lazy to walk a few blocks.

@frugal
you are wrong. ECR has 4 lanes going north bound into MP from PA. 1 is a left turn lane onto Sand Hill and 3 continue to MP where the are 3 lanes until we get to downtown MP. Why MP allow parking on ECR I will never know? All those business have parking lots. It is a huge cause of the daily bottle neck. Yes, traffic flow through downtown MP. not coming from PA.

@jayne, still never had to spend more than 5 min looking for parking. Could the lot behind Walgreens be improved, sure. We could also build a parking ramp.

Downtown has so much parking it should be called "Menlo Parking Lot". If you look at a satellite view, the #1 use of land by far is parking. The problem is not parking (at least for anybody not too lazy to walk a block or two), the problem is a lack of reasons to bother parking.

Re: ECR lanes northbound - there are 3 until cars get to Roble-Live Oak, where the right lane becomes a right-turn-only for Ravenswood. That causes a jam sometimes as non-turners merge left to continue. It's buses only fro Ravenswood to Santa Cruz, where it becomes 2 lanes.
I dislike the CURTIS St. pocket park, which was supposed to be there only for the summer. It's ugly & messes up traffic flow by compelling cars to continue on through through the next parking lot instead of being able to turn right get to Santa Cruz Ave. It's unsightly & takes away needed parking for any elderly Bank of the West customers. It also complicates deliveries to the offices upstairs, as trucks have to double-park in the rear lot or on Santa Cruz to make deliveries. Why maintain Fremont Park 3 blocks away if this unsightly astroturf/bollard blockade is so great? It closes needed access from CURTIS to Santa Cruz & vice versa.

I agree with someone above who mentioned the development resembled something in Los Angeles. Those aren't northern California architectural styling and I'm sorry that there's not more demand for attractiveness.

These will be ugly, especially as there's little room for trees or extensive greenery on the street side, at least.

I've read of the growing number of donations pre and post election to the Planning and City Council members in Palo Alto, not being reported til recently. When did local governments take on big-time dismissal of obligations to the community, determined by law? And why is there no outrage?

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