Really - what's not to like about The Village?

Here's my time line view of what's happened so far at The Village @ San Antonio

1. Phase 1 announced
2. Some happy some unhappy
3. The unhappy voices are the loudest
4. However in all of history, humanity has progressed in spite of the loudest critics (Remember Roosevelt's speech...It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better....)
5. It's the same with The Village @ San Antonio - Phase 1 completes
6. Results: Pretty amazing revenues for the city of MV - I'm guessing with all that coffee in Starbucks being guzzled down. Awesome experience for the folks who live in Mountain View and neighboring cities.
7. Roads improved, traffic more controlled, security improved
8. For those who remember the old Sears complex - contrast that look and feel to the look and feel of what's there now - Safeway, Jareds, Counter etc. Apples and oranges - absolute no comparison.

Here's how I see the Phase 2 time line
1. Phase 2 announced
2. Some happy some unhappy
3. The unhappy voices are the loudest (it's always that way)
4. However in all of history, humanity has progressed in spite of the loudest critics (Remember Roosevelt's speech...It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better....)
5. It's the same with The Village @ San Antonio - Phase 2 completes
6. Results: Pretty amazing revenues for the city of MV - I'm guessing with all that office rental revenues, movie tickets and pop-corn sold; Awesome experience for the folks who live in Mountain View and neighboring cities. Don't have to drive and burn gas to see a movie - for me it's a hop-step-and-a-jump for a beautiful full weekend experience.
7. Roads improved, traffic more controlled, security improved
(Recognize the pattern?)
8. For those who remember the old Milk Pail (no offense to the owners - it's a family run business and I can feel for you - but if you look at the greater good you could open anywhere else and still be successful), Ross and that line of buildings - it's a messy shabby looking rundown place - contrast that to the look and feel of the new movie complex and the high-end savvy office buildings. Apples and oranges - absolute no comparison.

So please raise your voices - but be reasonable and raise concerns that will improve the standard of living. Don't raise your voices just to be heard. May the team with the best intention win.

"May the team with the best intention win."

Merlone Grier's intention is to maximize profit for themselves.

Are you saying that Siegels intentions are less good?

And we all know where the road paved with the best intentions leads.

So let's see...by quoting Roosevelt, you are saying that all objections should be ignored?

And...you're saying that traffic is better since Phase 1 was completed? And will be better still with Phase 2?

And...you are saying that Phase 1 is an "Awesome experience"?

And...you are saying that our choice is either "shabby" or "awesome", Melone Geier's plan or nothing? And MP can just be a casualty of "awesome"?

OMG.

What's to like?

I used to be able to buy tools, household appliances, household linens and kitchenware, electronics, car services, eyewear, baby needs, photo center, jewelry repair, sports goods, fabulous shoe selection, drug store purchases,(Safeway is not as comprehensive as the old CVS) at the space that is now called San Antonio village. Now it is more like a village, you have to go somewhere else to find all the useful things that were situated where phase 1 is situated. The old parking lot had bigger spaces so that doors did not ding cars and doors could be opened to be able to get out a baby car seat or help a toddler buckle themselves in. At present a woman who is 8 months pregnant is unable to open the car door wide enough to allow herself to get in and out of the car they are so close together.

What do I like? Safeway, but if they had remodeled the old store it would have been just as good. I don't buy beds or jewelry very often. The Counter always has lines and the other restaurants I have checked out are for occasional celebratory type meals rather than a rushed midweek dinner.

Basically, this center is no longer very useful.

I like that part of @Denzil Joseph's above comment suggesting that the owner of the Milk Pail should consider the "greater good" and that he "could open anywhere else and still be successful".

What special knowledge do you have about this particular business that makes you believe that the owner of the Milk Pail can simply up and move, within close proximity to it's current location, and "still be successful"? Are you some kind of soothsayer? Do you know how long the owner of the Milk Pail has owned that parcel of land? Unless someone is willing to sell another parcel of land - in a similarly desirable location in Mountain View - for the same price that the owner paid (or is being assessed) for the current parcel of land, then the owner will be taking what one would assume will be a sizable financial hit property tax wise...just for starters.

Why should ANY property owner be forced to sell his/her property to a developer...for "the greater good"? Really? If that's what you believe, then I suggest that YOU offer to pay the stepped up tax basis and ALL associated relocation & renovation costs along with paying the employees and employee benefits if/when they are out of work during any transition period - however long that might be.

And, while you're glibly suggesting that a property and business owner should give up EVERYTHING he has worked for - his life's work - "for the greater good" well then, I suggest that you do the same...give up your property, your life's work and your income "for the greater good".


Don't tread on me. Old style.

I notice that all the comments that are not in support of the project have no real names to it. There's a Hmmmm, and a 'concerned citizen' and an 'mvresident' and a 'pa resident'. If you are going to comment and critic - at least have the guys to use your name. This is a forum for discussion and I'm assuming an educated discussion where everyone has a voice and an opinion and it should matter - no matter what your opinion is.
BTW...I love Milk Pail - I hope they get a place in the new complex.

@Cathy Riseley

I have posted using this moniker since I began posting on this forum. My privacy and personal security are very important to me, and for that reason I have no intention of publicly divulging my identity on this, or any other forum. Ever.

Feel free to disregard my comments, or not, and I will do the same with yours.

We've been there a few times, hardly "awesome". Writer must have some connection to the projects.

Doing a web search for Cathy Riseley and Mountain View turns up no results on any of the usual search engines and people search pages.

Same for Cathleen or Catherine etc etc.

So...all we can conclude is that anyone can use any given and sur-name and it would be same as using a made up moniker.

@PA Resident - DITTO!

Only 6 reviews on yelp so far, average 3 out of 5 stars, and no one gave it 5 stars

Web Link

But the worst part is it's all designed around maximum profit for the developers, not the needs of MV residents.

And council doesn't seem to have a clue.

Rally Tuesday night (July 1) to delay Phase 2 at the San Antonio Center
by Lenny Siegel

At last week's Mountain View City Council meeting, one councilmember called the Campaign for a Balanced Mountain View's preparations to circulate a referendum petition a "gun to the head" of the City Council. That's one way to look at it. I see it as democracy!

City leaders seem to have fallen out of touch with their constituents, and our only recourse may be to take the issue of San Antonio Center redevelopment to the voters. The Council is poised to approve the Phase 2 project by Merlone-Geier this Tuesday night, July 1. After a second vote July 8, they will take a two-month vacation.

The July 1 meeting is our only hope to convince the Council to vote to delay the project. Otherwise, we will be spending a month while they are on vacation collecting the 3,254 signatures of Mountain View voters required to suspend the Council decision and place a referendum on a special election ballot early next year.

Please bring friends, family members, and colleagues (and signs) to City Hall at 6:30 pm this Tuesday, July 1. We will rally outside before entering City Hall together for the final public hearing on Phase 2.

We will be asking the Council to delay, not approve, a project that will add office buildings designed to employ 2,500 people but no housing, in a part of town universally deemed suitable for medium-to-high density housing—as well as retail stores. With each new office development, renting or buying a home in Mountain View becomes more difficult for residents and employees alike. Decisions about the San Antonio Center should be made when the Council adopts a new Precise Plan for that area. If the Council agrees to the delay, our November City Council election will serve as a "referendum" to determine how Mountain View will address the ever-worsening jobs-housing imbalance.

I call myself PA Resident because I am a resident of Palo Alto and use the San Antonio area for most of my regular shopping. I think that information is the most valid information you need to know about me and that information makes my opinions matter.

I could call myself John/Jane Smith, but since my name doesn't give any information about who I am, I choose to give you the information that shows why I am posting rather than my identity.

You have all the information you need to know as to whether my posts are worth being in the discussion. Your name would let me know very little about who you are as you could call yourself anything you choose and I have no way of knowing if it was genuine.

"Basically, this center is no longer very useful."

Maybe not to you but it is very useful to all of the people who use it. Especially the dog park. The project is a huge success.

Unfortunate that Susan Hamilton chose to argue ad-hominem ("Siegel's rabid desire to stop progress") and by asserting offhand opinion -- the languages of so many Town Square posts.

The issues with San Antonio Phase 2 are much more complex than she portrays, and Lenny Siegel is widely respected among serious people for his integrity and thoughtfulness, even among many who disagree on specifics.

Ms Hamilton's glowing assessment ignored traffic. Yesterday's PA Daily Post (June 30) headline story described exacerbation of existing poor traffic flow near the Center. Traffic engineers today rate 26 of 27 intersections influenced by the project as "D" on their A-F scale; the 27th, San Antonio at ECR, is E, to degenerate to the gridlock "F" level if Phase 2 completes as now planned. Restoring even to "E" would need costly improvements to the intersection, already under Byzantine jurisdiction of two cities and two transit agencies with different agendas.

Post editor Dave Price said in an editorial that the Milk Pail issue alone -- an institution whose public importance seems to've completely blind-sided developer Merlone-Geier, a gross blunder IMO -- would amply generate the signatures to qualify Siegel's referendum for public vote, potentially costing Merlone-Geier the whole project, "all over 11 parking spaces."

@common sense (Thomas Paine reference?)

Could you please post the link to the PA online article you referenced in your post?

I read the very lengthy draft EIR that was done when HUGE (Jay Paul) development at 395 Page Mill Rd. was working it's way thru the Palo Alto's approval process. One of the intersections that was studied in that report was the San Antonio/El Camino intersection. The study was done prior to the construction of Phase 1 at San Antonio Center, and even then the report classified the intersection as a grade "E" and projected that if the 395 Page Mill project were to be completed the intersection would become a grade "F" intersection -- and that is without taking into account the potential impact of EITHER phase 1 OR phase 2 San Antonio Center.

I posted a link to this draft EIR after I read it, and will try to find it again and re-post, as it was eye-popping.

Jay Paul has since withdrawn it's application for the (re)development of 395 Page Mill, citing "the current political climate in Palo Alto". This withdrawal happened very shortly after Palo Alto held a referendum vote on a proposed development project on Maybell Ave. (Measure D) that resulted in the project being halted in it's tracks.

Unfortunately, it is looking more and more like a referendum on phase 2 of the San Antonio project may be the only way to wake up Mountain View's city council (and staff) about what the majority of residents of this city want and/or don't want happening here.

Overall the idea of Offices, Retail, Housing in and around a giant mixed use project seems good. Then old Safeway store on California St, mixed use with housing in the future. San Antonio Rd across from the Village, mixed housing is in the future. Don't forget with all the property changing hands in the future, school site is needed.

Milk Pail stands to gain customers, what business wouldn't mind more customers, shared parking is must. Shared Parking as a public benefit.

I do have issue with the design, could have been more like the Ramona block in Palo Alto or something more along the lines of classic design but that is the armchair planning in me.

We live in profit making driven society, we want new stores, MG is offering to build who new center. That is what they do, build to make money.

I use the dog park every day. So do many others. I shop at the new Safeway more than the old one. I like the Counter in MV better than the one in PA. And I've been going to the old one in PA long enough to know the owners only hired young girls of a certain..."shirt size" ahem... until attrition made the server staff a bit more reflective of all restaurants in that price range.

The volume at which you say you don't like the new development does not translate into your point being any more valid.

Plenty of people do like it. Unlike Milk Pail where people are sometimes pushy or sometimes just plain weird, there are plenty of people at the dog park who are sociable and have become acquaintances or even friends.

If it hasn't worked out for you, then not much can be said. Plenty of others like the new center. Far more enjoy just the dog park alone than have ever posted that they are worried about the milk pail

recent headine on CNN:

Sears: 'Burning cash,' closing stores.
Monkey Wards, Kmart... old business models die out. Same as old shopping centers.

If you want junky old shopping centers with half empty parking lots, there's always Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.

MVResident67: The Daily Post (published in Palo Alto and covering peninsula-wide issues) is mainly a print paper. The articles that I summarized above appeared in yesterday's edition in newsstands throughout Mountain View and the peninsula. It's also in public libraries.

Currently, the Post maintains only an "archive" online, charging a fee, so the usual access to it for most people is the print edition.

"Post editor Dave Price said in an editorial that the Milk Pail issue alone -- an institution whose public importance seems to've completely blind-sided developer Merlone-Geier, a gross blunder IMO -- would amply generate the signatures to qualify Siegel's referendum for public vote, potentially costing Merlone-Geier the whole project, "all over 11 parking spaces."

Again... the Milk Pail fan club and Post editor Dave Price don't speak for the entire city. Not sure why people cannot or will not get that point.

As someone who used and still uses San Antonio for shopping, my points are valid. I don't use the dog park because there are places nearer for me to use if I had that desire. Perhaps the dog park is used more by people who live nearby and need somewhere to exercise their dog.

Old places may close, but the ones in San Antonio were well used and filled a need. I don't want to drive for half an hour to get to Sunnyvale or Santa Clara. I am writing from my own experience as a long time Palo Alto resident, not a condo dwelling newbie, and my shopping needs are no longer met. I may be forced to change my habits, but I am not forced to like it.

@common sense,

Sorry. I was thinking you meant Palo Alto Daily. My mistake. I will see if I can find a copy of yesterday's Post, which I typically pick up several times a week. The fee for online access to the archives seems a bit antiquated.

Old timers pay squat in taxes compared to many condo dwelling newbies. So they are a drain on the city, not an asset. If someone wants to pay $1M to live across the street from a parking garage in Mountain View, that's their probl-- oops. no wait. That will offend someone in Palo Alto whose convenience while visiting other cities needs to be considered.

in 1995 you could still get a 3 bedroom house on Hope street for $330,000. Guess what- it even had a yard! Front and back! Figure out how I know that.

Let's not forget though, long time residents of Palo Alto who do not live in condos are more important than anyone who disagrees with them when it comes to Mountain View topics

Sparty, the specific "point" of the editorial comment you repeated (in the full text, which is in front of me at the moment, the editor cited a basis already well familiar to regular readers of the Voice and its website over the past year: the unusual outpouring of public sentiment over the Milk Pail, even if you weren't part of it) is that Milk Pail alone is such a hot-button issue as to galvanize public opinion against Merlone-Geier in a referendum, regardless even of weightier controversies surrounding the San Antonio project.

That's an honest assessment from an editor in another city, based on recent history -- hardly some attempt to "speak for" the Mountain View public! The reality of the prediction will emerge in the signature campaign if it develops, and by Merlone-Geier's reading of the potential referendum outcome. Not from armchair opinions cited on forums like this one.

Ah good point. Let's talk about armchairs.

So far, NO ONE has responded when I queried what street may CLOSE in the area...and also...what WILL be happening with San Antonio.

I thrown those questions out more than once. Never has there been an answer. strange from this cadre of informed folks who have their fingers on the pulse of what exactly is happening.

so now's your chance everyone. Before the meeting tonight. What are the plans for these streets? What businesses WILL be affected by this. Why does what Safeway decides to do have a HUGE impact on the plans and business? Name just a few of the more than 10 businesses directly affected by these street plans.

We are still attracting businesses to this corner, yes most of them restaurants but still those places bring shopping dollars. Over the years the retailers have changed, Harts went out of businesses because is couldn't keep up with the national retailers. Local 5 and 10's saw Woolworth's come in and eat into their business. Sears, JCPenney's have had their customer base get eaten by Wal Mart, things change.

Remember the internet has also had a hand in changing the retail world.

Mountain View by far still supports local business, go downtown and check out a book store, coffee shop or that local pizza chain. We have a superior farmers market.

Food, retail and service needs change.

The city can't rationalize the use of this space for offices and hotel. It can do that elsewhere. These have nothing to do with being a regional retail center. It was bad planning to stick offices and hotel in here in the first place.

As for residences, I do hope that we see more condos, even in high rise buildings. The current phase I residences are mostly high-cost apartments where the rent will go up and up every year but the property taxes will stay the same (plus 2% per year) despite the increasing rental income to the landowner. Condos are a much better way to go. There is not enough parcel tax being paid by this area to the school district. We need homes in Mountain View that people can buy, and he $1.5 Million single family homes are just getting increasingly rare. We can hope that condos could be constructed so as to sell for "only" $1 Million or perhaps less if first time buyer programs were created or utilized. This may sound like too expensive for homes, but the office space will contribute no housing. These offices will end up holding 8 workers per 1000 square feet--make no mistake. That's the current trend.

I am long time resident of Mountain View – 5 years as a renter and 40 years as a home owner.

I support well thought out development.
I have, and will continue to oppose shoddy development.

Good Development:
We, the residents of Mountain View, home owners, renters and businesses, want housing designed for People, similar to the Park Place project, that resulted after the City required the developer to listen to the community and provide an exterior design that looks somewhat like a series of row houses. One of the key elements in this successful project was that the community had a clear vision for downtown and made this project conform to the community vision. Park Place fits well into the downtown neighborhood, with medium-density housing.
We want San Antonio to have a variety of businesses such as the Milk Pail, and also, the Monument to Where Silicon valley was born.

Shoddy development:
Merlone Geier wants to eliminate the Milk Pail, add offices, an 80 foot tall movie theater, an upscale hotel, and upscale restaurants so they can provide their investors and us with their vision of Mountain View.

At Merlone Geier the needs and wishes of the community are not even open for discussion.


Focus on Residents and Places, not Objects and Projects

Sorry Konrad, you don't speak for me. Neither does Merlone Geier. But I'm in favor of the next phase of the project.

And MG certainly has not had the presumption to say they speak for me as you just did.

If you were at one of the many meetings that Merlone Geier had with the community, I wonder why you would say something like "not even open for discussion"

As I'm sure you are aware, there IS a monument to Fairchild. And I'm sure that you have seen the design, as I have. I certainly don't hope you mean to say the dirty grocery was the monument to the birthplace of the Silicon Valley. Dust covered products, bare cement floor, and the angry guy in the deli who screams at customers because the cashier makes mistakes. Can't say I miss that, although you may. I won't presume to speak for you.

@Konrad M. Sosnow
"We, the residents of Mountain View"
I hope it's a royal 'We', because I live in MV and I do support the phase 2.

The design of Carmel Village housing is no design. Those buildings remind me of the ugly blocks of flats that were built in England just after the war. They are horrible.

The Milk Pail -- all this over 11 parking spaces? I agree that we don't shop for jewelry or mattresses very often. What other retail is coming? Parking is not really that great for the restaurants unless you get there early forlunch or dinner.

I'll use my real name, as always, and am not in support of the current plan. I likes what "PA Resident" had to say about everything one used to be able to do there.

PA Resident said:

"What's to like?

I used to be able to buy tools, household appliances, household linens and kitchenware, electronics, car services, eyewear, baby needs, photo center, jewelry repair, sports goods, fabulous shoe selection, drug store purchases,(Safeway is not as comprehensive as the old CVS) at the space that is now called San Antonio village. Now it is more like a village, you have to go somewhere else to find all the useful things that were situated where phase 1 is situated. The old parking lot had bigger spaces so that doors did not ding cars and doors could be opened to be able to get out a baby car seat or help a toddler buckle themselves in. At present a woman who is 8 months pregnant is unable to open the car door wide enough to allow herself to get in and out of the car they are so close together.

What do I like? Safeway, but if they had remodeled the old store it would have been just as good. I don't buy beds or jewelry very often. The Counter always has lines and the other restaurants I have checked out are for occasional celebratory type meals rather than a rushed midweek dinner.

Basically, this center is no longer very useful."

I agree totally. We already had the Safeway, and the parking there at this center is a time wasting inconvenience. They limit parking to encourage walking and biking, but such does lend itself to doing much volume of shopping. I shop elsewhere. I hope to enjoy dinner & a movie in the new Phase II if the hotel has a really prime restaurant. We'll see...

I'm hoping phase II could be better. But what good are office towers to this place? They go dead at night And they do not encourage any feel of night life, as they would if they were apartment towers instead. Why would that be so much to ask to improve this plan?

One other thought: If the two 6 story towers house offices, rather than apartments, how would those people who work nearby ever get to have lunch anywhere there on their lunch hour? It will be the same hour most of those working in the offices will be doing the very same thing. The offices make this place quite useless to me.

Bad planning.

Preparing for the Volunteer Petition Drive against Phase 2
by Lenny Siegel
If the Mountain View Council re-approves the San Antonio Center Phase 2 redevelopment on Tuesday, July 8, we will have 30 days to collect the signatures of 3,254 Mountain View voters. While I have no doubt that thousands of voters are willing to sign the petition, collecting those signatures on hard-copy petition forms will be a lot of work. We would need to hit the ground running on July 8.
We are now soliciting volunteer signature gatherers. Please go to balancedmv.org/petition to sign up. We want to know who is circulating the petition so we can track how far along we are.
Here's how the petition drive would work:
If the Council approves the project this Tuesday, July 1, we will prepare blank petition forms on 8 ½ x 11 white paper, and we will have them available at the July 8 Council meeting. We will also make available at balancedmv.org/petition a PDF version of this form. To save time distributing forms, we are hoping that most people will download and print their own blank forms—again, on white 8 ½ x 11 paper.
Remember, no one can sign the petition until the Council takes final action approving the project on Tuesday, July 8.
Petitions may be signed only by Mountain View voters. The signature, name, and address should be the same as when they registered.
If a voter has moved from her/his registered Mountain View address, then she/he must re-register using a mail-in registration form.
If the voter is a U.S. citizen living in Mountain View, but is not currently registered to vote, she/he must register using a mail-in registration form.
We will make blank registration forms available. The signature of a re-registrant or new voter is valid as long as the Registrar of Voters receives the completed registration form before the petitions are submitted. (Though people may choose to mail their own forms, we recommend that signature-gatherers collect the forms so we can mail them in.)
Signature gatherers need not be Mountain View voters, but they must witness every signature and complete the affidavit at the bottom of every petition form. They must be at least 18 years of age.
Petitions may be circulated anywhere you expect to find Mountain View voters: door to door, at events, in workplaces, or outside stores or the Sunday Mountain View Farmers’ Market.
You may return signed petitions (containing signed affidavits) to the Campaign for a Balanced Mountain View c/o Pacific Studies Center (Lenny Siegel’s office), 278-A Hope Street, Mountain View, CA 94041. We will also have campaign volunteers available to collect completed petition forms.
We ask you to turn in completed petitions every few days. That way we'll be able to keep track of our progress.

Still we state why we don't like the new place and cling to something that was going away anyway.

still no commentary on the ADDITIONAL 90-120 Sears stores closing.

You have to keep up with the times. There are more books sold online than in brick and mortar stores now.

Being afraid of the future isn't going to make it go away.

I'm sure many will express their thoughts that "its not about the future it's about____"

Well yes it is about the future because we keep hearing the same old arguments. I don't like it so it must be no good for anyone else either. And if it wasn't good for them, I don't care because everything has to be my way because no one else who has an opinion in Mt View matters.

Lived in England, saw some ugly buildings which most of them were ugly residential blocks, yes they were built after the war. Sections of England were bombed out, new housing had to be quickly. What I understand when they built these so called housing estates, tall blocks of housing surrounded by open space and car parks. Buildings were ugly but many reasons why the housing estates became crime infested welfare housing. Lots of people lost their jobs when industry left, too many people on the dole, poor construction and materials, lack of ownership housing.

Phase 2 is far different project, business producing jobs on site, better materials, MG investing their money not the local council, MG is not building to solve social problems. English post war housing was to house the number of house less families fast, cheaply in the best methods at the time.

I am suspicious over how conveniently the milk pail deal arrives when the opposition switched to housing as a delay tactic. Milk pail was a red herring and someone played all of us

The voters have kept a development from happening before in Mountain View. In 2000 Home Depot had a lease on the El Camino Property in front of the Americana Apartments, where now there's a medical clinic. The city council after a lot of debate was persuaded to turn them down. Home Depot mounted an initiative campaign and the voters soundly rejected that development. See Web Link

And then again in 2007, Home Depot wanted to take over the site Sears was in, which is about where the Carmel Apartments now stand. Once again public opposition stopped this particular development.

These offices and a hotel are no better than Home Depot in that spot. The voters can stop it, and the Milk Pail settlement is just not enough to avoid a showdown at this point.

Posted by rucy', a resident of Monta Loma
10 hours ago
"I am suspicious over how conveniently the milk pail deal arrives when the opposition switched to housing as a delay tactic. Milk pail was a red herring and someone played all of us"


Huh? The Milk Pail is an immensely popular, local business that has been a destination for people far beyond Mountain View for 30 or so years. It's no red herring, although I have no doubt that you can buy herring there.

Delay tactic? No, we just don't want a tons of new office space and the additional traffic resulting from employees who can't afford to live here because of the lack of affordable housing.

If anyone was trying to play us, that would be Merlone Geier whose offer of shared parking was dependent on council's approval of Phase II. Talk about holding a gun to council's head!

Yeah, Merlone Geier offering The Milk Pail a shared parking arrangement that is contingent on the approval of Phase II is pretty specious, but not surprising.

-- You can have you precious Milk Pail and in return you stop fighting our development proposal. --

Who's got the proverbial gun to who's head, now?

What is it that people aren't getting here?

1. Milk Pail is currently OK, it shares existing parking. Merlone Geier has now agreed to continue this if its redevelopment plans proceed. Either way Milk Pail stays. End of issue. Next question, please.

2. Dave Price's Monday Post editorial analysis, concluding "My guess is that M-G doesn't want [Milk Pail] to go to the voters, [and will make] a deal," has now, of course, been validated.

>. Merlone Geier has now agreed to continue this if its redevelopment plans proceed. Either way Milk Pail stays. End of issue. Next question, please.

did you not watch the meeting? Kazperzak made a a big deal at the end to make sure he understood, if version 2 of phase 2 happens, Milk Pail stays.

Not if they revert to phase 1

Either way it's shelved because they all basically said "we don't know what we don't know" about additional housing.

Also they need to figure out what to do about the ration of offices/housing and how that plays out in the 400K vs 5M in taxes

I spoke to the MG guy as we left after 1 PM last night and he smiled broadly at the mention of nice housing in maybe both, not just one, of the towers, with atriums for the tenants to enjoy lush gardens without traffic noise. It would be lovely for them.

I really want both towers to be housing. It will be high end, but at least housing, as there are so few other places that I want housing stacking in! And we definitely have enough offices!

Sparty: Do you not read the Voice whose forum you post on? Milk Pail already had a five-year agreement with M-G covering Phase 1. Much can happen in five years.

Common sense-- go back and watch the video.

watch Kazperzaks drawn out discussion.

or not.

Oh and...Comm-Sen you are aware big box plans for version 1 came with the implication that the giant wall would ruin Milk Pail

And even after last nights meeting, which obviously no one watched, no one can answer what is going to happen with San Antonio and perhaps with one other street... Which is why I earlier prompted people to post it BEFORE the meeting.

Obviously reading this forum which everyone is posting on isn't quite good enough to get full details.

I've been there once and won't go back. I don't like the small, tight parking lot in front of Safeway and won't use the parking structure because I don't like maneuvering my car in tight places (that's the same reason why I don' go to Whole Foods across the street). The Safeway was nice and large but I was disappointed to see that they had not expanded their selections. I can find the exact same things at my local store. It may be nice for those in the vicinity but I'll be making fewer trips to that part of town now that Sears and CVS are gone (and last week I went to the Sears in Sunnyvale/Cupertino so they're the ones who got my tax dollars). It's definitely been a turn off for me.

Rite Aid. Not CVS. There is a CVS across the street. Where it has been for years and years.

And there is another CVS a mile away.

Someone also said "CVS is gone" in the meeting last night.

Funny how people have magically forgotten all the curbs and randomly striped parking lots before. Going from say Burger King to Sears was not a straight shot unless you intended to drive your car through that side door at Sears.

Actually it used to be Payless before it was a Rite Aid. And CVS used to be Longs. I miss both of them and the sporting good store. Again my tax dollars go to Sunnyvale...via the Sports Basement and Sports Authority. And who drove their car if they were going from Sears to Burger King? Are we talking about the same location? You could park once and go to Sears, the sporting good store, Burger King and the drug store.

Curious Observer has it right. The parking is ridiculous and it isn't even at peak traffic yet. More importantly...who cares if it is the biggest Safeway in the world? They still have the usual selection. Except, the produce isn't very good and not very well priced.

It's funny that the developer wants to call it a Village, yet did not want to put any houses or condos there. Just a few high priced apartments and a hotel. What "Village" do you know that has no home that you can buy?

So, if it is not a Village, then what is it?

I love in the council meeting, MG tried to stack the public comment with his tenants. They were given a script to say that they rely on the current Phase 2 design being approved for their business plan to work. So transparent.

A few apartment residents came in and complained that until phase 2 is done, it's not going to be as nice. Perhaps the apartment should offer lower rent??

I don't think the addition of a small number of housing units will make a dent in the demand, but I do appreciate the last minute compromise.

I just read about Santa Clara's plans for the development near the SF 49'ers new stadium. The article calls it "a second downtown". $8.5 Billion in development, 5.3 million square feet. All of that with 380 apartments.

And people keep saying Mountain View is the source of jobs/housing imbalance! (At least the tech jobs are well-paying).

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?