|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
TMG Partners and “The Related Companies” have been selected to be master developers of a unique $1 billion research park at Moffett Field in a partnership with NASA Ames and local universities.
“This has the potential to become a model for sustainable development,” said William Witte, president of The Related Companies California, in a press release.
The 3-million-square-foot project includes nearly 2,000 homes, a million square feet of commercial space and 600,000 square feet of academic space, according to conceptual plans.
The developers say that working with universities and NASA Ames attracted them to project, which could be seen as risky in the current market. The developers are betting that the economy will rebound in three to five years, said William Berry, president of University Associates-Silicon Valley.
“A new community integrating the commercial, science and residential components with technology companies of Silicon Valley can be found nowhere else,” said Michael Covarrubias, chairman and CEO of TMG, in a press release.
A year ago, University Associates Silicon Valley LLC (UA-SV) signed a 95-year ground lease with owner NASA Ames for the 77-acre site, located on the southwestern corner of Moffett Field. The Foothill-De Anza College District and University of California, Santa Cruz joined to create UA-SV with the intention of creating a major Silicon Valley college campus at Ames. Santa Clara University and Carnegie Melon University have also written letters indicating that they intend to partner in the development.
UA-SV has until 2013 to begin construction of the project under the lease, Berry said.
TMG and The Related Companies were both vetted financially, along with four other interested developers, by UA-SV. Berry said he is confident that the development firms could provide the best available financial backing for the project, adding that the reputation of the master developers “demonstrates the considerable attractiveness of this project, even in a tough economy.”
An environmental impact statement approved in 2002 for the NASA Research Park calls for a maximum of 2.9 million square feet, including 1,930 housing units, 600,000 square feet of academic space, 300,000 square feet of industrial space and 100,000 square feet of training and conference space.
Doesn’t sound like the plan includes retail space, specifically for a supermarket. With 2000 residences and no food shop, I don’t know how it can be called a “sustainable development.”
The article cites two rough square-footage plans. Here’s how I see them stacking up.
Current plan: “The 3-million-square-foot project” minus “a million square feet of commercial space” (Is retail “commercial”?) minus “600,000 square feet of academic space” leaves 1,400,000 square feet for “nearly 2,000 homes”, or about 700 square feet per home. This development is on leased land: the homes will be rented/leased and are much more likely to be multistory apartments than single-story detached homes. At “$1 billion”, the cost per square foot is $333. Is that high, low or medium?
EIS plan: “2.9 million square feet” minus “600,000 square feet of academic space” minus “300,000 square feet of industrial space” minus “100,000 square feet of training and conference space” leaves 1.9 million square feet for 1,930 housing units, or about 984 square feet per apartment. (No commercial, no retail.)
Either way, we are talking about 2,000 to 6,000 people, depending on the average number of people per apartment. Are these people going to be considered Mountain View, Sunnyvale, or Santa Clara County residents? Where are they going to shop? Are they going to be students, commercial or industrial workers, or what? Does the square footage for housing include garages? Does the square footage for non-housing include parking?
Based on my recollection of the EIS conceptual drawings, we are talking about 3- and 2-story buildings, including parking structures. This is necessary because “the 77-acre site” has about 3.35 million square feet. IF we’re talking about a single-story development, that leaves about 350,000 square feet (about 8 acres) for such amenities as garages, parking, sidewalks, streets and, oh yeah, landscaping and parks.
As usually NASA does not care about the local population.
Nor do they care about the Military community in the area…. We lost the Base Exchange in Feb of 08 and it is no telling when we will lose the Commissary. It would be nice if The Bay Area Congressional Delegation (8th, PELOSI, NANCY/9th, LEE, BARBARA/12th, SPEIER, JACKIE/13th, STARK, PETE/14th, ESHOO, ANNA/15TH, HONDA, MICHAEL/16TH,LOFGREN, ZOE ) *CARED*…
Check out this link
http://researchpark.arc.nasa.gov/Public/publicDocs.html
Click on the NASA Ames Development Plan (NADP at the top of the page. It is 99 pages and is a 89.9Mb file.
Here is a extraction from page 1 of the PLAN – ::::
“The NASA Ames Development Plan (NADP) details the transformation of the original 200-hectare (500-acre) campus of NASA Ames Research Center and the 600 hectares (1,500 acres) of the former Naval Air Station Moffett Field into an integrated, dynamic research and education community in the heart of Silicon Valley. This transformation will be fed by the establishment of the NASA Research Park, a 86-hectare (213-acre) research and development campus for partners from academia, industry and non-profit corporations with shared goals in support of NASA mission.” (NADP, page 1)
/signed/
Military retiree/presently federal employee
Doug, since Foothill/DeAnza and UCSC will be heavily involved, I would expect that a lot of the housing would be in the form of dorms and/or student apartments, which aren’t typically very big. The actual mix of housing — how much of it is for students and postdocs vs. employees and families — is probably more important than the average square footage of a unit.
Another important question is, if a substantial proportion of it is family-style housing, what impact will that have on local schools, and has that been planned for?
And what about roads and other such infrastructure? My husband worked for Yahoo! for three years, and had to daily navigate the road zoo around 101, 238, and Mathilda — I shudder to think how much worse that could become at rush hour with a significantly larger local population. (He tried biking it at first, but concluded that was just too dangerous.)
Consideration should be given to extending Light Rail from Ellis and Hwy 101, through this new development, and cross the Stevens Creek waterway so that it travels by Shoreline Amphitheater, Google and Intuit. In this way, car travel would be minimized and workers/residents can have access to mass transit, such as the train station.