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The two developments proposed for adjacent sites on San Antonio Road have plenty in common: each would bring more than a 100 apartments to an area where Palo Alto hopes to see more housing and each would significantly exceed zoning regulations.
They also have one glaring difference that may determine success or failure. One plans to provide plenty of parking for its 120 apartments, while the other is leaning into the “car-light” movement by providing less than half a space for each of its 168 units.
The contrast stood out on Monday as the City Council reviewed the proposal from Grubb Properties for 800 San Antonio Road and from Time Space Group for 788 San Antonio Road. The council didn’t take any votes in the “prescreening” hearings, but members made it clear that parking impacts will play a central role in their decision on whether to approve the needed zone changes to facilitate the two projects.
Both developers are looking for zone changes that would replace projects that the city had already approved. Grubb bought the property at 788 San Antonio in 2022, after the council signed off on the prior owner’s plan to build 102 apartments at the site. Time Space received the city’s blessing in 2024 to build a 75-condominium development at 800 San Antonio Road.
Since then, both builders experienced turbulence thanks to a combination of rising construction costs, impact fees and interest rates. At the same time, Palo Alto’s appetite for growth has expanded, with the council rezoning commercial corridors along San Antonio and El Camino Real to make them suitable for multi-family housing.
To take advantage of the changing development climate and make the projects more economically feasible, both developers are now looking to go bigger. Grubb wants to construct an eight-story 85-foot development while Time Space plans to keep its project at a height of 55 feet, akin to the project that the council approved a year ago. That said, the new project proposed by Time Space would be 60% denser than the prior proposal.
The council had no issues with the growing ambitions of the two developers, even though some members suggested that the Grubb building set back the upper floors of its development so that it doesn’t look as massive.
“We don’t want a big wall on both sides of San Antonio,” Council member Keith Reckdahl said.
Of far greater concern was Grubb’s parking plan. The developer is proposing just 73 spaces for a project that would normally require 199. The goal is to encourage residents to rely on other means of transportation, including transit and biking.
“As an owner and operator, it’s something we are very comfortable with,” said Megan Watson, senior director for development at Grubb Properties. “We think there are ways to achieve this through TDM transportation options such as bikes, scooters, incorporating shuttle stops and EV share programs.”
The council was not entirely swayed. Numerous council members pointed out that the San Antonio area, which is located near U.S. Highway 101, is currently woefully short on amenities that would further that.
Council member Pat Burt said that while he supports transit use and biking, he is “taken back” by the parking plan proposed by Grubb and said he was skeptical about the developer’s ability to keep people from driving.
“Where very strong parking reduction projects are done there are walkable services, there is walkable transit,” Burt said. “This doesn’t really have either of those.
“You’re talking about an extremely low-parking project in an area that doesn’t lend itself to the guiding principles around significant parking reductions with very strong TDM programs.”
Grubb is proposing to build its new project using development standards that are akin to those that the city recently established in a “housing focus zone” on El Camino Real. But as Reckdahl noted, the San Antonio area doesn’t have El Camino’s transit services.
“I think this parking is really based on some wishful thinking, it doesn’t reflect Palo Alto, it doesn’t reflect the site that you’re building it on,” Reckdahl said.
The council was far more sanguine about the Time Space proposal, which would fully comply with existing parking regulations by providing a two-level underground garage with 179 spaces.
“I think it’s an example of what we’re looking for,” Stone said. “It’s providing what seems to be a significant amount of new housing but at a scale that’s appropriate for the area.”
Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker also said she was impressed with the proposal from 800 San Antonio. She said she appreciated Time Space’s efforts to keep the building envelope the same even as it increases the number of units from 75 to 120. The main quibble came over unit composition. The prior proposal included 16 three-bedroom units in its mix; the new one includes just six three-bedroom units. It would also include 23 studios, 41 one-bedroom apartments and 50 two-bedroom apartments. The prior version didn’t have any studios.
Mayor Ed Lauing said that he supports the project but argued against encouraging too many studios at the expense of larger units.
“We just have to be cautious as a city that we don’t go all the way in that direction,” Lauing said. “And I think it would also be detrimental to developers because only a certain number of people stay in the studios their whole lives.”
Council member George Lu suggested that Time Space could even go further and request more units, even if it involves reducing parking by a marginal amount.
“I hope that because it’s so substantially similar to what we approved before that we can get this pretty quickly through our process,” Lu said.
Funny how the no-parking ideologues pushing their “no one wants cars” fairy tales keep ignoring the FACT that “cruising” — the traffic circling looking for parking — already makes up 15% of ALL traffic, a percentage that keeps rising as they take over more and more city offices since the developers keep shoveling campaign dollars at them.
Consistently pro-density freshman candidates with no experience keep raising the most money and have the highest percentage of non-local donors.
Gee, I wonder why so outsiders would be contributing so much money so consistently to the BUILD, BABY, BUILD candidates like Lu and Julie, don’t you?