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As state laws redefine minimal parking requirements, a previously approved commercial development in downtown Mountain View is no longer going to provide any on-site parking as originally planned. Instead, the developer plans to offer $8 million to the city to construct its own parking garage.
In a unanimous vote Tuesday evening, the council gave the go-ahead for Marwood, a real-estate investment and development company, to modify its parking plans for a four-story office and retail development, located at 701-747 W. Evelyn Ave.
The council originally approved the Marwood project in 2019. At the time, the developer proposed to construct a 28,000 square foot office building with 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail, which included three levels of underground parking. But the parking was contingent on having access to an adjacent property.
The Robert Green Company, another development firm, planned to build a five-story hotel and office complex on the neighboring lot. The idea was to expand its underground garage to the Marwood property, but the hotel development has not moved forward since then. The developer is working on obtaining its building permits, according to the council report.
“Even at that time, the proposal was uncertain”, said Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson, who presented the plans to the City Council. So Marwood and the city came up with an alternative plan.
In lieu of the three-level underground garage that would have had 82 spots with 25 of them available to the public, Marwood plans to build a one-level underground structure that will have space for storage, bicycle parking and showers. To make up for the loss of on-site parking, it will contribute $8 million to support off-site parking and access improvements downtown, Anderson said.
At the same time, the city is planning on constructing a five-level garage at one of its municipal parking lots, located at 230 Hope Street. The garage will have 400 parking stalls, resulting in a net increase of 146 spaces downtown, according to the council report. The expected cost of the construction is $24 million. It is possible that the Marwood fees would support the new garage, Anderson said.
As part of its deal with the city, Marwood requested 65 preferential parking permits for 30 years. It will receive the permits at no cost for 10 years, followed by a 25% discount over the next 20 years. The annual value of 65 parking permits is approximately $25,610, according to the report.
There were no public comments about the Marwood project at the council meeting, however community members had brought up concerns about the issue of limited parking downtown at previous meetings.
But as staff pointed out, the recent passage of a state law, AB 2097, prohibits cities from denying projects because of lack of parking. It also limits cities from enforcing minimum parking standards for development projects that are within one-half mile of major public transit, like the Downtown Transit Center, which is directly across from the Marwood development.
The transit center helped anchor the vision of the commercial development, said Ernie Yamane, partner and senior vice president of Steinberg architects, who presented the design plans to the council. “It’s a very small site, but a very prominent site, next to a city park and across the street from the transit terminal. So, it may essentially be the gateway to the city for many of those taking the transit and pedestrian kind of experience to the downtown,” he said.
Except for the parking, there were few design changes to the proposal. The plan called for the removal of three Podocarpus trees if the hotel development did not move forward. Originally, The Robert Green Company planned on removing the heritage trees as part its proposal. Marwood also proposed to paint a mural on the backside of its building if it was left exposed by the lack of a hotel development.
There was little discussion about the Marwood project from council members, who noted that the project was long-in-the-making, stretching back to 2015.
When asked about the construction timeline, Yamane referred to the downward trend in market conditions. “There’s pretty high vacancy rates in the whole area. But I think that a few years down the road, I think we’re keeping our fingers crossed, that this is something that will still be a positive addition in terms of a workplace,” he said.
Council member Pat Showalter summarized the council’s sentiment with her approval, noting both the protracted timeline and the challenge of incorporating another nearby development plan.
“I have really appreciated the developers’ willingness to work with the city and with the adjacent hotel structure, whether it’s there or not, and the flexibility on all the parking arrangements,” she said. “I’m sorry, it will take so many years to get to construction, but I understand your problems with the economy,” she added.
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Love the on-site bike parking and showers. You can store hundreds of bikes in the same space that would be a parking lot for only a few cars, and people who bike get some exercise and free up space on the road for people who need to use a car, so it’s win-win.
This sounds like a reasonable tradeoff of paying the city to develop the parking, as long as it happens BEFORE the construction starts on this and the existing parking is removed. There have been several Fridays where I couldn’t find parking and gave up and left. Wish the city shuttle bus worked past 6pm.
On a different aspect, this is a 5 story building. That is taller than pretty much every tree around. I bring this up because if you are out at, say Rancho San Antonio and look across our city, it is lush and green with many mature trees taller than the buildings hiding them completely. It’s a big part of what keeps this area beautiful. But, those few taller buildings stick up past the trees and leave a big bare patch. I hope our planners keep these all in one small geographic area, preferably near others that already exist and have already fractured the green-space.
What “city park” is it next to? It looks to me like it’s next to a parking lot, but surely we haven’t begun referring to those as parks?
I don’t know what it cost to build 3 stories of underground parking but I’m going to risk a wild guess, more than $8M.
Developers love Mtn View. And Mtn View loves them, evidently.
Don’t know what type of retail there will be but it could be questionable to transport purchases by bike. Any thoughts about that in the planning?