Thanks Betsy. One quick question: has the City engaged outside consultants to compare downtown MP retail activity (anonymized cell phone tracking plus sales tax revenue) to other Peninsula small towns (Burlingame, San Carlos and Los Altos all have similar populations)?
After living in a 5th floor downtown Palo Alto high rise for 5 years, I moved down to ground level in Allied Arts 27 years ago. I always thought downtown MP was comparatively sleepy and it seems even sleepier now with quite a few closed / empty storefronts. Im guessing total downtown sales tax is down post-pandemic, but I wonder: was this the relative case even pre-pandemic? Since the Great Recession, Downtown Los Altos, San Carlos and Burlingame all appeared to have surpassed downtown Menlo Park and I suspect this is because they have expanded their "critical mass" downtown with more downtown residents and more dining plus entertainment options that Amazon, Door Dash and NetFlix cannot replicate.
Unlike bigger Redwood City (which nevertheless succeeded in revitalizing its downtown), the comparison with smaller-like-us Burlingame and Los Altos is very apt. Like Los Altos Hills and Hillsborough, Atherton has no downtown and its residents likely go to bigger downtowns in next door RWC 1st, PA 2nd (inc Stanford Shopping) and next door MP 4th. It would be interesting to hear what customer volume Draegers Los Altos location did as Los Altos downtown grew versus Draegers Menlo Park. Both likely raised prices, but Ill bet one suffered fewer customers.
I suspect its a bit of a "go big or go home" kinda thing where we compare and find out downtown MP is much smaller in dining, retail, entertainment and residential.
Bully for music at the Guild on El Camino Real! Can we just "turn the corner" on developments like this to walkable Menlo Ave (not really a "downtown" street save for TJs) and even extend it to sleepy Santa Cruz Ave?
Keep the village small, watch it slowly die?
On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 9:48 PM Nash, Betsy > wrote:
Hi Paul,
Thank you for your email. Your supportive input is very helpful.
Best,
Betsy
[cid:CMP_Email_Logo_100dpi_05d92d5b-e8e3-498f-93a6-d0da509bd602111111111.png]
Betsy Nash (she/her)
City Councilmember
City Hall - 2nd Floor
701 Laurel St.
tel 650-380-3986
menlopark.gov>
See www.pronouns.org> to learn more about why I share my pronouns.
From: Paul Roberts >
Date: Monday, November 18, 2024 at 12:28 PM
To: "Nash, Betsy" >
Subject: downtown housing over parking
Even though Im in next door District 5, I sent an email copied below to the city council email...
====================================
Im a Menlo Park resident who often shops in downtown MP as well as downtown Palo Alto. My wife and I favor building higher density housing on the downtown lots with some reservation of paid parking for local business employees, new residents-to-be and minimized free parking for retail customers.
Employees, residents and longer term day visitors ought to pay for parking lots and structures that cost the city to maintain (is maintenance of current surface lots paid for by occupants?). I worked at Stanford Health Care and free parking was NOT given out to its 10K+ employees despite the islands of open space on campus (those who did park on campus, did so far away from nearer patient parking). Paying for long term, regularly scheduled parking incentivizes fewer cars from those who can plan their all day and all night parking needs. Santa Cruz Ave CalTrain station is nearby.
We should also learn from downtown Palo Altos example of overbuilt free parking. I lived there in the 1990s and since the Great Recession the city built a few new parking garages which I almost never use now. Their recent parking study showed less than 50% occupancy now, post-pandemic. The subsequent parking use and revenue shortfall has led to new proposals (e.g., only 1 hour free plus another 1 hour voucher)
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/12/01/housing-or-parking-palo-alto-considers-new-proposals-for-downtown-parking-lots/
Palo Alto has more high density housing in its downtown, so we should also learn from them how much of their retail business derives from local, walking residents (from my years living there, Id guess a whole LOT more than downtown Menlo Parks current walkers). We ought to consider this "parkless" boost to local business as well.
Did Menlo Parks recent parking study show a 50%+ occupancy drop off from midday to late afternoon (obviously few all day employees) and between midday vs early morning (few early morning shoppers as well)? If so, that large a drop off implies high hourly parking turnover largely driven by short term mid day retail. This can be accommodated in thoughtful ways without mandates that each and every pre-pandemic surface parking acre be preserved (Ill wager any pre-pandemic parking study of the same lots would have shown longer and higher occupancy of essentially the same city parking acreage).
- Paul Roberts
