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A tiny, orange box-shaped building on Dana Street in Mountain View will soon be replaced by a three-story office building, following approval of new development plans for the property Tuesday night.
The Mountain View City Council voted unanimously in favor of the downtown offices at 747 W. Dana Street, which will include ground-floor retail space. The approval comes despite concerns from council members that downtown retail has struggled to survive, and sought assurances that the space won’t sit vacant or get converted to office uses.
The building will be located close to Castro Street, next door to the previous home of Books Inc., which remains vacant.
The property currently has a one-story “block” building that was constructed decades ago to serve as a storage space for a hardware store that used to operate downtown, said Ken Rodrigues, the architect for the new proposal. The plan is to demolish and replace it with a 50-foot-tall building with just shy of 7,000 square feet of office space.
In order to spruce up the area, the developer is proposing to put planters in front of the property, though there are no landscaping requirements under the downtown zoning rules. Rather than provide the necessary 21 parking spaces for the project, the developer will pay roughly $1.2 million in fees to develop parking elsewhere in the downtown area.
Rodrigues told council members that the building’s design, including its thick columns, will be attractive to retail tenants, and pointed to his experience working on other commercial properties in the downtown area. He said his company bought 301 Castro St. and has spent years restoring the building and renovating the interior for a new tenant, who will be moving in shortly.
But the design nevertheless sparked concerns that it might not work out. Robert Cox, speaking on behalf of the group Livable Mountain View, said the stark design — coupled with thick columns that block visibility — raised concerns that it won’t be an attractive place for downtown customers. He feared that the developer could strike out and entirely scrap the idea of using the space for retail.
“We are concerned that the applicant may come back to the city and ask for a conditional use permit that allows office to be substituted for retail on the ground floor,” Cox said.
Though some council members quibbled with the design and questioned the colonnade element, including Councilwomen Lisa Matichak and Sally Lieber, the council ultimately declined to make last-minute changes and approved the project on a 7-0 vote.
No tenants have been picked to occupy the new retail or office space, according to city staff, pending building permits and construction that is expected to take years to complete.
