Council Members,
Please take time to read this important information, before your next council meeting on Tuesday September 29, 2026.
The Feasibility Report is telling you:
This Downtown Menlo Park Parking Ramp/Apartment project is NOT Financially Feasible.
What Is Your Fiduciary Duty? STOP !
Quote from the citys own Feasibility Report:
"all three proposals identified a significant financial gap."
My reading of the feasibility report, as a Commercial Real Estate Attorney:
The Menlo Park City Counsel is on notice: The Feasibility Report is NOT recommending that you promote this project.
Caveat: IF you go forward, disregarding the reports findings; and it fails:
It is on YOU . . . NOT the Feasibility Report !
Problem:
This entire project relies on multiple obvious false facts, assumptions, ideologies and beliefs, and will fail IF a mere three (3) city council members, who admit that they have no experience in real estate matters of this type, are allowed to vote to proceed.
FACT:
This entire project is NOT NEEDED to satisfy State Mandated housing !
Because:
Menlo Parks July 2026 published staff report confirms that the Downtown lots are NOT even needed to meet the RHNA requirements.
Solution: There are other locations that are housing deliverables without the multitude of legal, infrastructure, gridlock, safety, environmental, business and jurisdictional constraints.
They are well documented at:
https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.SaveDowntownMenlo.org&c=E,1,MEVf_0l5tdwTZGGDzZ18ZFo57-o_7Mt15zurVAvbsQTQB6VGo4Eaa2-aKezYDQ_KWooJhwhE1XKlZbLdxtWJv7YQOhOHqgi1knjsazyaT-OQSNoV1XY,&typo=1
Important Reminder:
The Citys own Feasibility Study warns of the following:
"all three proposals identified a significant financial gap."
Simply stated:
This project is NOT needed AND, is NOT financially feasible.
Additional issues that warn of failure:
False Assumption #1:
The Feasibility Report provides "strategies" to fund the "GAPS" that "might" make up for the
"Missing $Millions".
True Facts #1:
Menlo Park is NOW, and in the foreseeable future, in a financial DEFICIT! There is No money available, from our city; or from the bankrupt state of California, for "PRIVATE" developers; nor should there be!
AND: From the Feasibility Report:
The suggested "unworkable" strategies include:
A) Impose a Local Sales Tax to give our taxpayers money to a Private developer to build their Privately Owned Ramp.
B) Impose an Annual "levy" to charge the store and property owners a fee to pay for a privately owned multi-story Parking Ramp, that 135+ of the businesses oppose in signed petitions; AND their customers are reluctant to use (see my many emails to the Council regarding Palo Altos Ramps: They are Empty below street level and Empty above level 2)
C) Reduce the number of parking spaces required, so it is not so expensive!
( See below: the (363 unit) FAY Apartments foreclosure due to lack of adequate parking).
D) Increase "Multi-Modal Access" to Downtown Menlo Park.
"Multi-Modal" is a fancy term to disguise the fact that 3 people on the city council think you should NOT have a car!
You should walk or ride a bike, a pedal bike.
E) Reduce the affordable housing goals!
STOP: Wasnt "Affordable Housing" the reason for all this chaos ???
F) Charge for parking, on the street, AND in the ramp, using meters to raise money to help pay for the PRIVATE developers ramp.
Problem: Businesses and Customers want to keep their FREE PARKING (As Is) . . . NOT be burdened with parking meters and parking fines!
The City Council Members are on notice:
Downtown VITALITY will suffer!
False Assumption #2:
Apartment people dont need parking spaces, they can walk and bicycle; so can the employees and customers of the businesses.
True Fact #2:
REMEMBER:
Lack of enough parking caused the foreclosure/bankruptcy last year of the 363 unit "FAY Apartment Building" (see below) in downtown San Jose.
Common Sense, Logic and Real Estate Standards require (at least) 1.5+ "assigned parking spaces" per apartment unit.
(Menlo Park will require at least 520+ EXTRA parking spaces for the tenants, in the same apartment buildings, not in a ramp 1/3 mile away!)
Conclusion: This project will require a total of at least 1,100+ parking spaces.
Cost range? $80,000 to $120,000 per parking space:
1100x $80000 = $88,000,000
1100 x $120000= $132,000,000
Problem:
NONE of the developers offer enough parking, and the Feasibility Study also says: it is NOT financially feasible.
What to do?
Abandon this project NOW, and save taxpayers money being spent on a lawsuit that the city will lose AND a parking ramp that can NOT be paid for.
False Assumption # 3:
Menlo Parks Parking Plazas can be renamed: "Surplus Land"; if a mere three (3) council members, with NO real estate experience, SAY SO!.
True Fact # 3:
Any action to Declare the Parking Plazas as "Surplus Land": Must be postponed until the lawsuit and the "YES" ballot measure are concluded.
If the city moves forward with a vote on the Surplus Land issue, it will trigger a re-filing of the pending lawsuit, a cease and desist order (if necessary) and a definite wasting of more of our taxpayers money.
If the city council relies on the state legislators to DEFINE surplus land, they are ignoring reality. True Facts, Common Sense and Logic defines Surplus Land as: "unused, abandoned, extra land that is not otherwise needed"; (like an old overgrown field or an abandoned city lot).
Our Downtown Parking Plazas are actually defined as: "nearly 100% filled; actively used, occupied, needed, essential, necessary, relied upon,
AND: Bought and Paid For by the adjacent property owners".
No legislator, and no council member, can change reality.
The State legislators have bullied Menlo Park and Forced the "Sunset Willow Tower" on Menlo Park with their overreaching, meddling, "Builders Remedy"; a twisted theory of micro-managing our LOCAL Zoning Laws!
City council: DO NOT accept their perverted definition of "Surplus Land"!
A FULL Parking lot is NOT Surplus Land
You, and everyone Knows This!
The pending lawsuit against the city, and the "YES" ballot measure, will keep the promise, and shame this council for their failure to acknowledge the promised property rights of the property owners, who PAID money for their parking lots, and who now heavily rely upon the street level, convenient, parking spaces for their survival.
The adjacent property owners RELIED on the Honor of the City of Menlo Park to KEEP their documented PROMISE to NOT CHANGE the parking lots, unless the majority of the property owners VOTE to approve a change.
Keep the PROMISE!
This is NOT the first time this Promise was challenged.
There is a precedent supporting the adjacent property owners and businesses rights:
See below: the attached Shute Law Firm letter dated 2/18/2010.
In 2010, Menlo Park Mayor Richard Cline wisely withdrew a plan to build apartments, a hotel, stores and a parking ramp on the exact same downtown parking plazas.
Mayor Richard Cline (and the city council) wisely STOPPED the project, because of the asserted legal objections from the adjacent property owners, businesses and their attorneys; who demanded the same right to "VOTE on any changes to their parking plazas".
It was NOT surplus land then,
It is NOT Surplus Land NOW!
WARNING :
5+ years of disruptive Downtown Parking Lot Construction will damage "Downtowns Vitality", which is the City Councils documented "Priority".
Honor your promise to make the VITALITY of downtown YOUR PRIORITY!
Important Ethics and Fiduciary issue:
A mere three (3) city council members ( 2 of whom are leaving office) do not have authority to lease our (taxpayer owned) parking lots, to a PRIVATE developer for 50+ years: Definitely NOT at less than a fair market rate.
REASON: The city’s plan to effectively "Give Away" the parking lots valued at nearly $50 million dollars, to a Private developer for ONE ($1) Dollar/year, for 50+ years, will surely be met with strong opposition by the taxpayers, as a Breach of their Fiduciary Duty as council members. This will further damage the Feasibility of this Flawed Project and introduce a new delay, and delays cause construction cost estimates to increase.
Fact: Any Private developer should pay standard leasing fees for the use of our parking plazas:
Standard arms-length negotiated leasing fees start at $500,000 per year, with annual escalators.
There are many more flaws with this project that need to be disclosed.
One example: One developer plans to earn extra money by NOT having clothes washers and dryers in each apartment. They plan to have a communal coin-operated laundry room. That decision will make it almost impossible to rent these apartments!
Would you rent such an apartment?
I would NOT!
That is just one, of many more failings, that were not mentioned in your feasibility study.
Not mentioned?
1) Will the Fire Department approve the plan to wedge 9 story (100+ feet tall) apartment buildings in between the existing older buildings, many of them having no sprinkler systems?
2) Will prospective tenants be willing to look out upon the Overflowing Dumpsters at the back of the stores below?
3) There is much more that is wrong with this project . . .
Please email me IF you disagree with my analysis; explaining why you disagree; and I am willing to meet with the council (gratis) to help resolve this matter.
Mercury News: (2025)
Hopefully, the YES voters on the ballot measure will win, and the pending lawsuit will stop the city council from making this irresponsible, irreversible, Major Mistake!
Act responsibly . . . Because:
From Some Bad Decision, There Is
No Turning Back!
Respectfully submitted,
Michael C. DeMoss, resident,
Commercial Real Estate Attorney, Former Menlo Park Finance & Audit Commission member and Chairman of the Audit Subcommittee.
Mayor Richard Cline acknowledged the rights of the adjacent property owners to VOTE on any changes to their parking lots.
Keep the Promise.
Reminder:
"all three proposals identified a significant financial gap."
This project is NOT needed AND, is NOT financially feasible.
Sent from my iPhone
