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Everyone...
I hope in the meeting this evening that you will all vote to reopen Santa Cruz Ave as it has been a disaster to retailers. Beyond the impacts of Covid on all of our businesses the closure has been devastating traffic wise for the retailers while it attempts to help the restaurants. Customers simply do not know how to get to where they want to go so it's easier for them to go somewhere else that has it figured out.
Burlingame apparently has reopened their main street now that the sunset has happened for their closure... we should do the same here.
We really just need the street opened and the restaurant parklettes expanded to the adjoining parking spaces so that BOTH the restaurants and retailers can survive. I really fear a downtown of even more empty storefronts that will cause customers to shop elsewhere.
The city of Menlo Park also need to make a blanket approval for the restaurants without a cumbersome permit/approval process for them to expand and build the parklettes as well as add the big blue "P" signs with arrows to point folks to the parking lots that are behind the businesses that few even know exist... despite them being decades long Menlo residents. Of course the parklettes should comply with all codes and ADA requirements... but please fasttrack these projects for them!
The worst proposal I've heard that has been floated by the Vice Mayor is the permanent closure of Santa Cruz Ave. This would make it a ghost town in a few months and I would be forced to relocate my business to a new location. I really hope this doesn't become a reality. I've spent nearly 8 years building up a business here in downtown and I really would hate to leave.
Keith Quiggins
[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e961f0085d0e104a500f887/t/5ed6ee7fe529096244112ad8/1591143930281/?format=750w]
844 Santa Cruz Ave. • Menlo Park, CA 94025
Office: 650.308.9690 • Cell: 650.242.6804
