Sounds absolutely wonderful! I'm so pleased to hear that the project is moving forward. Love the idea of a place to go like the Oxbow Market. And, this hopefully will be a great place for all generations- even teenagers!!

>>> Sounds absolutely wonderful!

^^^sounds absolutely HORRID...another log jam of cars & diners cluttering up a quiet downtown area.

Have you ever been to that San Pedro Square Market near the San Jose courthouse?
No convenient parking (except for the humongous multi-tiered parking garages), a very loud dining noise environment, food not all that great.

OK for serving downtown office and court diners but major traffic snarling on two-way streets with only parallel parking options.

from the Weekly article...

" Since starting Los Altos Community Investments in 2010, Wojcicki has invested in the city of Los Altos with "strategic long-term investments that ignite growth and vitality in the downtown," the company's website reads."

^^^BS...LACI & Wojcicki just want to turn a quiet downtown area into another Palo Alto/Mountain View style dining hellhole.

Don't people think about anything else besides stuffing down food & making petty small talk over designer H20, coffees and/or wine/beers?

What's the next target town for one of these mega-dining crapholes...Carmel by the Sea, Tiburon, Malibu et al?

Los Altos badly needs to restore of the simple treasures that have disappeared in the past few years. Lindenwood Bookstore was a feast of one-of-a-kind items, some long out-of-print. (Its successor up the street just carries standard-issue children's series that cost less online.)

The Main Street Cafe is another. It accommodated small groups for informal meetings and neighborhood notices in a relaxed space. The over-priced restaurants that have been established in the past few years are cramped and noisy. Given the high rents, relaxed spaces are relics of the past, but without resources that support community needs, Los Altos is simply one more soul-less suburb.

I have been wondering what they were planning for that structure. This is great news! Hopefully it will include specialty shops for ethnic foods,meats, cheeses,organic vegetables, etc.

Looking forward to seeing how this works out.

Glad to see the progress.A used to be such a boring, no reason to go to town.

Let's hope there's some decent Thai or Chinese food as these are lacking in Downtown Los Altos.

I am a foodie. More great places to stuff my face and work on a new BMI record! Love to see the great places opening in our area.

Calling downtown MV a "hellhole" may be a tad overdramatic, yes?

Seems written by someone who has never seen an actual inner city and covers her furniture with doilies. Good god, and now these cretins want to drink coffee and alcohol? In Los Altos? What is the world coming to?

Sounds like an excuse to get permits to build profitable office space on 2nd floor instead of housing.

Los Altos is the only downtown I can think of that is dead by 7 PM. What a depressing downtown. These people who decry that their favorites no longer exist don't seem to understand that businesses cannot survive without foot traffic in a downtown. Kudos to this person for having a vision.

Grown-ups go there instead of drunken college students, and there's nobody shooting up drugs in the parks or hitting you on the head and stealing your stuff as you go back to your car.

When I miss being yelled at by a crazy homeless person, a la Lower Market Street in SF, I head to University Avenue.

How about you get some REAL gelato in there, like Italian GROM, certainly not that tin pot way-too-rich stuff and other imposters. Be interested to see if this is REALLY GOING TO BE LIKE THE FERRY BUILDING or just some suburban Drek. Please bring the good stuff.

It sounds like a Bumble-ized food court.

>>> Glad to see the progress.A used to be such a boring, no reason to go to town.

^ At one time downtown Los Altos was a cool place to go grab evening cocktails...Mac's Tea Room (with a piano bar) for the old timers & the Main Street Bar & Grill (later Los Altos bar & Grill) for the younger crowd.

>>> Calling downtown MV a "hellhole" may be a tad overdramatic, yes?

^ Concurring, but downtown MV isn't all that attractive either.

>>> When I miss being yelled at by a crazy homeless person, a la Lower Market Street in SF, I head to University Avenue.

^ Or the Tenderloin in SF. Expanding downtown Los Altos to accommodate hordes of out-of-town diners/drinkers will also attract more transients.

Los Altos has been pretty successful in keeping out the homeless. When this mega Food Court is completed, Los Altos will become just like another downtown MV or PA with loads of foot traffic (aka jay-walkers) & cars.. *ugh*

>Los Altos is the only downtown I can think of that is dead by 7 PM.

I guess that you are technically correct, but only because Menlo Park is dead by 6.
I would kill to have Manresa, State of Mind, etc here in Menlo.

This looks terrific. Huge improvement.
As someone who grew up here since the early 60's, I'm excited to see these changes, and remember dears, everything changes. That's what life is about.
Enjoy what you have when you have it and when it's gone, don't be bitter, love what is next. Life is a series of turning pages. We need to enjoy the whole book and not be sad that another story line has started on the next page.

Building was better says:

“Have you ever been to that San Pedro Square Market near the San Jose courthouse?
No convenient parking (except for the humongous multi-tiered parking garages), a very loud dining noise environment, food not all that great. "

A multistory parking structure across the street not convenient for you? There are also metered parking on the streets around the market.. my advise- don't go there anymore.

Glad this is happening but Los Altos has added quite a few good restaurants in the past few years -- Cetrella, ASA, Urfa, Rustic House, Log Cabin Pho etc etc. -- and still has some good old-fashioned breakfast places. Their farmers market is late Thurs. afternoon / early evening.

Menlo Park is hardly dead, with Bistro Vida, Yum Cha's Chinese, Left Bank, Galata Bridge (Turkish), various Italian places. Unfortunately they're building a BUGE office / mixed use building right next to Ace Hardware.

But at least both towns still have parking and hence are convenient if you're meeting people.

the fitness center, conference rooms and offices are all private and not for the public.
the food hall stations are all going to be staffed by a mega corporation catering company, NOT individual restaurants or families.
retail will be limited to a few spots for select vendors, such as a meat market and yet another bakery...

If you've never been to Tre Monte then you're missing out on one of the most authentic Italian/Calabrian restaurants on the Peninsula. Their food is seriously amazing. Have referred many friends and they all agree.

They keep trying. God bless them....cool idea.... thanks for reporting it. they also helped our friend start her flower shop....downtown Los Altos has great parking and access from foothill and the city is trying to build more housing. Traffic for restaurants is slim.... Los Altos is lucky to have someone willing to look past the money and trying to keep the retail and restaurant going in the face of retail end times...this yearning for the past masked ny traffic and transient concerns is silly and sad....rich person version of the conspiracy theory. With real estate so expensive the subsidy should appreciated..

There's always two waiting periods for me when I'm looking fwd to a cool new spot.
First the waiting for the opening, then the waiting for the hype customers to go away. After things settle down I look fwd to checking it out!

No kidding.

Step back to the period (within many residents' memory) when everyone still read daily newspapers, and Patricia Unterman and Stan Sesser wrote SF-Chron restaurant reviews that were incisive, informative, and entirely unpretentious (some consider it the high-water era of Bay-Area restaurant journalism; eventually Unterman was fired by Michael Bauer, a completely different species of writer, who wanted and took over her job, and played up his role like a prima donna).

Problem: Once Unterman & Sesser had praised a restaurant, hundreds of trend-obsessed readers crowded into it and for a little while, longtime and neighborhood customers couldn't get in. I observed this as multiple favorite restaurants got the treatment in turn. The fashion-frenzied hordes never, ever, became steady customers (off trying the next recommendation in a week or two and probably boasting about it), so the exercise was problematic for the restaurant owners and employees. A moment of attention and glory, followed by a longer period of uncertainty as some of the old customers drifted back. Some restaurants went through hard financial periods, as a side effect of the transient attention.

@There was no golf cart to shuttle him to the square,

>> “Have you ever been to that San Pedro Square Market near the San Jose courthouse?
No convenient parking (except for the humongous multi-tiered parking garages), a very loud dining noise environment, food not all that great. "

A multistory parking structure across the street not convenient for you? There are also metered parking on the streets around the market.. my advise- don't go there anymore.

^^^ No comment except that some folks prefer to circle around in a multi-story garage just so they can dine like caged rats in a hyperbolic 'food court'.

Though the restaurant/entrepreneur & upscale gluttony types may beg to differ...It's always the 'outsiders' who eventually ruin various downtown (aka local) areas for the actual residents.

One issue Los Altos does not have is homeless vagrants roaming the downtown area or masses of homeless RVs cluttering its streets.

The outside traffic emanating towards this glorified 'food court' will attract the kinds of individuals we do not want in this town.

It's bad enough having to endure them at the county library where they often hibernate in the restroom stalls, do their hand washables in the sink or use the individual study desks to mend their socks.

Unless the new food court is willing to feed these kinds of people & then send them packing (if/when they show up in droves) things will only become more difficult for the LAPD & the residents who have to endure such visual blight.

Look at downtown Palo Alto Alto, Mountain View and San Jose and all their meth-laden transients. You don't see this kind of stuff in Los Altos, Menlo Park, Atherton & Hillsborough as the residents will simply not stand for it.

The prospective food court diners are simply diners who enjoy crowds...not high-end food.

@Building was better with caged rats

"^^^ No comment except that some folks prefer to circle around in a multi-story garage just so they can dine like caged rats in a hyperbolic 'food court'."

LOL. Complain much? There is parking nearby. If there wasnt any parking you would be complaining about that. Clearly you have nothing to contribute to this discussion, other than the fact that you enjoy caged rats (sautéed I assume)

"The outside traffic emanating towards this glorified 'food court' will attract the kinds of individuals we do not want in this town."

Looks like it's already happened!

Putting a single story of housing above the retail stores on Main and State would be such a plus for businesses and housing. We don't need more offices downtown.

@Building Was Better As Lindenwood Bookstore... lol

Los Altans and Palo Altans are all the same!

Let's just keep running down already run down 50+ year old buildings that are seismically expired as poorly operated bookstores. That sounds more like a hellhole to me than giving the building new life an invigorating downtown.

Yes, 100,000 people are all the same because of the place they live.
If they moved to another town they would be different! LOL!!