With Magnussen Toyota preparing to move from Palo Alto to Mountain View, its site on San Antonio Road is slated to make way for a 66-townhouse development under a new proposal from the property owner.
The dealership has been planning since 2024 to relocate from its current site at 690 San Antonio Road to a new location half a mile south, on OId Middlefield Road in Mountain View. Its effort to build a two-story auto center in Mountain View received a boost last year, when the Mountain View City Council rejected an appeal from residents who demanded that the city impose more conditions on the proposed development.
Now, plans are afoot to build housing on its current site in Palo Alto, which is owned by the Peery Foundation. The San Ramon-based developer Trumark Homes is proposing to build 66 townhouses at the site, according to plans. These will include 10 that would be offered at “below market rate” levels and designated for households with “moderate” incomes.
The development would also include 132 garage spaces for residents and 22 guest spaces, according to the preliminary application. Located near the intersection of San Antonio and Middlefield Road, the project would consist of nine buildings, each including between seven and nine units, according to project plans.
Because the site once housed underground fuel storage tanks, it is included on the Cortese List, an inventory of California sites that have housed hazardous waste and substances and that would normally require additional environmental analysis and mitigation. The attorney for Trumark argues that despite this requirement, the project should be exempt from additional environmental work. He cited the recently passed bill AB 130, which allows certain housing projects to get exemptions the California Environmental Quality Act.
Tamsen Plume, an attorney with the firm Holland & Knight, noted that the tanks were removed in 1984 and that the removal required remediation. She also submitted a “closure letter” that the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board issued in 1999, which indicated that the remedial action for the removal of the underground tanks has been completed.
“The site’s listing on the Cortese List is not disqualifying because the site received the statutorily prescribed uniform closure letter required for eligibility for the exception to disqualification for sites with underground storage tanks listed because of a filed unauthorized release report,” Plume wrote. “Therefore, the site remains eligible for the AB 130 exemption.”
The new redevelopment plan would be just the latest in a series of transformations for the site, which was used for agriculture for at least two decades before 1963, when its western portion was developed with three buildings and parking lots, according to an engineering report that was submitted as part of the application. Two of the three buildings at the site were ultimately demolished and replaced with paved parking lots. The third was expanded and serves today as the auto dealership.
This would be just the latest in a series of transformations for the site, which was used for agriculture for at least two decades before 1963, when its western portion was developed with three buildings and parking lots, according to an engineering report that was submitted as part of the application. Two of the three buildings at the site were ultimately demolished and replaced with paved parking lots. The third was expanded and serves today as the auto dealership.
The housing application is one of many that are targeting San Antonio Road, an area where the Palo Alto City Council recently relaxed zoning standards as part of a push to create a new residential community and meet the city’s housing goals. Other nearby projects in the city’s development pipeline include a 168-apartment project at 788 San Antonio Road; a 174-condominium project at 800 San Antonio Road; and a 25-unit project at 824 San Antonio Road.
The city is also now in the midst of putting together the San Antonio Road Area Plan, a vision document that would identify additional land use changes with the goal of improving the transportation network and adding retail, park spaces and other amenities. The plan had envisioned creating a small plaza or a park on the Toyota site, which is among the larger properties in the plan area.
“We are trying to create a sense of place in the San Antonio area,” Planning Director Jonathan Lait said during an April discussion of the San Antonio plan.
