I hope the City Council really pushes to have fantastic architecture and smart urban design. This is a key location. Some ideas:

-This is an opportunity to enhance and expand the natural open space along the banks of Stevens Creek, and integrate that open space with the new development. A multi-story parking garage on the banks of the creek (as shown in the current site plan) seems like a wasted opportunity for such a unique piece of land.

-A bridge to the trail would be a major asset to hotel guests and office workers. It would allow them to travel to Downtown or the Shoreline area by foot or bike.

-Maybe someday Moffett Boulevard will live up to its name, and be a great street to walk along that connects Downtown with Moffett Field. A good site plan would prepare for that future, and design these buildings to present a welcoming face to the street, with direct pedestrian connections.

-The architecture is going to be very visible from the freeway. Moffett Blvd. is the freeway exit that leads directly to MV's main street. Don't let the developers pass off some cookie-cutter corporate design. Don't budge on architectural standards and build something that marks the location as a gateway to Mountain View.

Office buildings are needed, we have retail space being converted to offices, solution to this build more offices. Hotel will take pressure off rental units.

Build some new hotels, replace older motels on El Camino Real for housing.

With all their billions of dollars in assets, this developer should use this opportunity to show off with some really well built, expensive looking architecture, not just the regular flip up, stacked-boxes-with-over-sized-lids look that is going up everywhere nowadays. Should they come up with a substantially beautiful style, it would mean lots more business for them from here on out. I visualize actual, substantial looking moldings around doors and windows, and none of that dry stacked stone home-for-spiders stuff. That fad is tired.

We really do need large and small meeting areas that the public can rent. This location could incorporate beautifully ornate meeting rooms/ballrooms that even bridal receptions could utilize, providing the hotel with entire wedding party guests, plus their guests who come from out of the area.

This is our chance to look so great we really shine. And let's really add value with classy stuff and meeting rooms that can hold so many people, they make MV the best place to come for this. It is really needed considering the giants we have attracted to this, now the center of silicon valley. They should have at least one meeting room so large and nice it rivals even one of the sections of the convention center Las Vegas.

And why must the parking structure have the best view and most relief from the freeway noise? I think that needs to be switched around...

@Linda Curtis:

"And why must the parking structure have the best view and most relief from the freeway noise? I think that needs to be switched around..."

It likely has something to do with PG&E substation and the high-tension power lines that run along Stevens Creek. It is arguably safer to put a parking garage closer to the high-tension power lines versus a hotel or office building.

Road noise shouldn't be an issue. The windows would be double-paned, just like any modern building next to a freeway or railroad line on this planet including the spendy Four Seasons Silicon Valley up US-101 in East Palo Alto.

Besides that, if you were just driving past the Gateway site, would you rather look at a sleek handsome hotel/office building or a parking garage?

The hotel project will never be built because the council will impose a card check requirement and workers will not be allowed to vote whether or not they want to join a union. It will be imposed through card check. The developer will then ask for a larger subsidy from the city to build the project.

Once again the majority of our City Council were short-sighted.

Mountain View could have had a Marriott hotel from "builder of the year" R.D. Olson.

Instead we get more offices.