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In recent years, Mountain View has struggled with high retail vacancy rates, despite efforts to revitalize the downtown corridor.
Now the city has a clearer picture of why so many storefronts are vacant, after commissioning a consulting firm, The Retail Coach, to investigate the reasons for the empty spaces.
The upshot is that property owners and real estate brokers are optimistic that Mountain View is headed in the right direction and investing in the downtown area. But for many, the path forward is not happening fast enough. Getting permits is an unclear process and perceived as a hassle, and there’s no strong motivator compelling property owners to fill up empty storefronts.
There is also a disconnect between available retail spaces and permitted uses by the city, said Charles Parker, project director at The Retail Coach, who presented the report to the Downtown Committee on Feb. 4.
The good news is there’s plenty of retail potential in Mountain View, according to the report. While the city is not a top shopping or dining destination for the region, it still attracts visitors from a large area and is highly accessible by Caltrain.
Mountain View also has a sizable demographic of young urban singles who are living in close proximity to downtown. They are more likely to spend their disposable income on dining, shopping and entertainment experiences, Parker said.
But so far, Mountain View has not fully capitalized on these assets. A development update posted on the city’s website says there are 18 ground floor vacancies on Castro Street, with several of these sitting empty for more than three years.
The Retail Coach reached out to more than a dozen property owners on Castro Street, looking to get information about their empty storefronts. It heard back from four respondents who provided candid assessments about their reasons for not filling the spaces.
The consultants also connected with real estate brokers, many of whom have been working in Mountain View for years.
A top issue was a sense that there was very little direction from city leadership about its vision for the downtown area. Property owners are hesitant to invest in their spaces if they are not sure that their projects will be approved, Parker said.
Community Development Director Christian Murdock noted that Mountain View is in the process of updating its precise plan for the downtown area. The plan sets out what the city allows and prohibits as permitted uses. But this is not necessarily the best way to help businesses get off the ground, he said.
“That is a critical issue that’s on my list to try to improve that situation so that we’re not just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but we’re trying to help those things that are ‘yeses’ get through the process in a more constructive way,” he said.
Respondents also had a poor opinion of working with the city. The permit process was time-consuming and difficult to navigate, they said, adding that they often received conflicting and inconsistent feedback from city staff.
Another pain point was right-sizing the retail spaces. Several ground floor vacancies on Castro Street have a lot of square footage, making them less suitable for boutique retail. As a result, property owners have had difficulty leasing out the spaces, leaving them “dark” instead, the report said.
Murdock said the city is working to implement strategies to improve the permitting process like putting in a one-stop service. The city also has been updating its codes to make it easier to allow for different and more flexible uses, like retail pop-ups, in vacant spaces.
Still, a lot of this information was not reaching the public, Murdock said, adding that more could be done to communicate better with property owners and brokers.
Downtown committee members pushed back on some of the city’s responses, urging for more immediate action.
“One of the things we do is an awful lot of ‘looking at’ in Mountain View,” said Committee member Mike Kasperzak, who encouraged the city to move faster on its plans to activate downtown spaces.
Committee members also touched on the thorny issue of non-responsive property owners who have shown no interest in filling their spaces, despite attempts by the city to work with them.
“We have tried carrots. We have tried the appeal approach, and that hasn’t worked. So what are the motivators that would get them to move?” asked Peter Katz, president and CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce.
The report included a span of properties, 360-368 Castro St., in its analysis, even though the owner did not respond to inquiries to participate in the study. It could be a major catalyst for retail growth, the report said, adding that it was located near a parking structure.
Other property owners are sitting on vacancies, like at 279 Castro St., assembling surrounding lots to potentially go taller as a mixed-use development. In this case, there is not a strong financial need or incentive to lease out the space, the report said.
“It kind of leaves the property owners the ball in their court to improve or change their space, which is something that is tough to make them do – tough to do a carrot or a stick,” Parker said.
Vacant Mountain View building condemned after 3 people, small fire found insideJanuary 16, 2026 5:15 pm
It was frustrating to not see downtown revitalization be a bigger priority in the recent MV City Council election. Year after year, spaces remain vacant. MV needs more useful retail – instead, more stores are closing, forcing us to go to other cities if not online. Los Gatos and Burlingame, for example, have vibrant downtowns.
I’ll do it for free. Open up Castro to traffic. Closing it has caused this. Need new voice on the city council. They made a huge mistake by closing Castro down. It will never get better ever. Remember this comment.
Hooray, another “open Castro to cars” dead ender in the comments. Just the most delusional, clueless people. Just move away already.
I dare the city council to set a 90 day approval goal for Castro street. This would mean prioritizing those requests and turning around feedback quickly.
If this isn’t their top permitting priority, im not sure what is. If everything is equal, nothing is a a priority.
Even better, don’t require approval to start a business. Some places have cut red tape by moving from an approval based system to one where you simply notify the city that you’re starting one, no approvals needed.
Im also not opposed to an escalating vacancy tax here. Having a street level commerce is in the public interest. At some point, though, the property owner is just getting greedy and needs a stick.
This has been going on for over a decade. Asking the property owners nicely to fill up there spaces has not worked. (a) Simplify the permit process and cut out the silliness that comes with it. (b) Levy monthly fines on property owners who are sitting on empty spaces. The large building next to Ava’s has been empty for 15 years. Ridiculous.
Could we maybe examine why rents are being massively hiked? Places that have been there for years are leaving because landlords are raising rents, only for the properties to sit empty for weeks or months, or, apparently, years.
A vacancy tax seems worth considering…
Good to see some focus here… MV Voice, keep reporting. Do deep dives on the owners who aren’t addressing their prolonged vacancies. City Council: I think at this point we’d rather see the “gosh, is this a good fit for the area” review and permitting stuff end… get things moving, and let the market decide. Bad retail ideas will quickly meet their end, good ones will persist, and one or two might really surprise us (in a good way).
The reasons for all the vacant businesses are all in he article, just veiled in misunderstanding.
It comes down to the city micromanaging the local business scene, and arguing about what their “precise plan” should be, instead of the rightful people, the owners of the buildings and the ones with business ideas, to make those decisions.
This is going to be my 30th year living in Mountain View, and I remember Castro St being much more vibrant in the past. Online shopping had a big part to do with this, but we have a city government which is trying to bring back a past that isn’t viable anymore, instead of allowing the people (aka, the market) to build what they see as necessary.
The great cities all grew before people made careers of “urban planning” or “zoning”. I won’t mince words. These people are a scourge and a parasite on productive society. Get out of the way and let the city thrive.
All these people that property owners can magically bring businesses to their storefronts are delusional. It takes entrepreneurs willing to invest huge sums of money to take their concept from buildout to opening and they have to fight the city every step of the way. Why would they come to a dead retail area? One of the reasons is easy access. Downtown has become a quagmire of traffic and confusion. I’m not talking just about the Main Street closure, but more about the asinine closure of traffic from Moffett Blvd into downtown. I was told this was originally done for “safety”, because cars were backing up onto Central Expy prior to Covid. This was caused by Uber/Lyft drivers blocking Castro by stopping in the 100 block to load or unload passengers. Covid and the closure of Castro alleviated this, yet they made the mistake of closing access completely from the North. There is a huge parking garage literally RIGHT THERE, that you have to make a circuitous detour to Shoreline to get to. This route is constantly backed up with scores of cars all trying to bottleneck into downtown via Villa St. This is also a public safety hazard, as it affect traffic flow for the Police and Fire stations.
The city needs to re-open the North entrance to downtown. They need to remove the concrete center island between the tracks and Evelyn. After laying asphalt, the entire intersection can be restriped and one lane will feed Westbound directly to the parking garage and beyond and the left lane can feed Eastbound directly to the train station. This would be a MASSIVE improvement for bus schedules and train station access, as well as alleviate to insane congestion we face on Shoreline and Villa. It was not practical previously for a left turn from Castro to Evelyn, but with the Main Street closure, it is now possible. It’s such a no brainer, I don’t know why it has not already been done. Instead, they spent a ton of money redoing the island with a bike lane in it, despite the need for it having been made obsolete by the street closure. It’s maddening to see the city waste money on projects that do literally NOTHING.
I have put a lot of thought to this, as my commute has been through downtown for the last fourteen years and I have witnessed every single misguided change and tweak of the traffic flow, the traffic lights, the bus routes, and every day I think to myself, who came up with this?
It’s too bad that “split roll” prop 13 reform barely failed to pass a few years ago. Commercial property owners can sit on vacant property for years and their property taxes aren’t high enough for them to worry about putting the land to good use. “Land Value Tax would solve this” as the Georgists say.
In the meantime, cutting the red tape seems like the best way forward. Why let perfect be the enemy of the good with micromanaged plans? Guarantee approval with a certain number of days for any legal business and see what grows.
– cut the red tape
– implement an escalating vacancy tax
– keep Castro pedestrian only
– consider Greg’s comment on a north entrance to parking
Ramirez – good ideas. But rather than dare city council, you should run for city council. You’ll have my vote.
Agree with several commenters about reopening Castro St and taking Greg David’s traffic suggestions to heart. I really liked having Castro closed off to traffic, but it’s killing our downtown, so it’s time to reopen to traffic. Also, I heard from a store manager that the plan to elevate the street to meet the sidewalk is still in the works. That will be the final nail in the coffin for the remaining retail and shops for good. Please don’t waste our taxpayer money on that project!!
The local downtowns around us are looking very good in comparison. Why hire a consultant? Just go to Los Altos, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale and ask them what are they doing that is working so well. Agree to cut the red tape on permits and for goodness sake, start fining the property owners for keeping their storefronts empty!! Maybe take a trip to Los Altos and look at their simple but effective beatification efforts. Perhaps hire their gardeners? Their sidewalks and planters look amazing. You all closed the downtown during a busy 2023 holiday season and I honestly don’t see anything that got better because of it. A huge waste of our money.
And yet, we the voters must face the part we have contributed to. We re-elected tired, worn out council members like McAllister, Showalter and Clark so I guess we get what we deserve. None of them have an inspired idea between them and the collapse of Castro St and all of MV happened on their watch. We rewarded them with another term to put us in the grave. And instead of action, they hire another consultant. Ca-ching!
And I’m also seething at the ridiculous amount of money we pay our city planners and managers. They have set us back years. Go visit Sunnyvale and see the major turnaround in that downtown. It’s incredible and vibrant. Why can’t we have that?
I give our city and their leaders a huge fat F for failure.
I would love to eat and shop on Castro more often, but we can’t physically get to it anymore. We live on the north side of Central Expressway and there’s no way to turn onto Castro. We can’t get there without a giant detour along either Shoreline or Calderon and through the maze of residential streets back to Castro. I like having some short sections closed for street dining, but to close a main artery to enter Castro was not helpful. If they would just open up that first block on the north end so cars could get in from Central and then work around to the side streets and parking structures, we might come back. In the meantime, we have just started shopping/eating in other cities that make it more convenient.
Rent is expensive. No small business can afford 150k a year rent.