Just an observation,

I have been trying to get this city ready for this for 2 years. When Covid forced Meta, and Alphabet to use Work From Home, it was a perfect test to see if they could function equally well without the local centralized offices in the valley.

It PROVED that it works and thus the businesses have WASTED too much money on the offices in Santa Clara County.

And NOW Meta has officially stated it woill NOT return to the old system. If Meta is doing this, so is Alphabet and Apple. This is terrible news for Mountain View.

Given that the PROMISES of expansion are about to become what they really were VAPORWARE, just like Mattel Intellivision personal computer module that NEVER arrived. in 1980s.

These people remind me of the song from the 80s called Promises, Promises. The lyrics go like this:

"Never had a doubt in the beginning, Never a doubt
Trusted you true in the beginning, I loved you right through
Arm in arm we laughed like kids, At all the silly things we did

You made me promises, promises, Knowing I'd believe
Promises, promises, You knew you'd never keep

Second time around, I'm still believing, The words that you said
You said you'd always be here, "In love forever", still repeats in my head
You can't finish what you start ,If this is love, it breaks my heart

You made me promises, promises, You knew you'd never keep, Promises, promises, Why do I believe?"

Face it EVERYONE, you cannot hope for a MIRACLE here, the tech industry is pulling out. What is going to happen to all of the first floor busineesses now? They are going to close. Especially if you are betting on the WeWork model, that is a proven disaster.

The City Council KNEW all about this probably for more than a month, but didn't tell the City about it.

And why exactly is Mtn View building MORE office buildings when fewer are needed, instead of building more housing to address the jobs:housing imbalance we already have?

@JAFO I totally agree.
And as a Gen-Xer, Promises, Promises by Naked Eyes: Web Link

Out of control growth in Mountain View has never made sense to me. Today, it makes less sense than ever…

Dan,

I think this is the first time we ever agreed on anything. It may surprise you who JAFO is, just remember the on called TBM "The Bowel Movement" LOL

In any event, The City has even more problems than this, the City Inspector signs off on construction, but does not REQUIRE that building materials be scanned for defects, especially wood. This construction standards was established with a document from the Dept. of Interior called "In situ assessment of structural timber using non-destructive
techniques" it was published by the DOI here is the id code (DOI 10.1617/s11527-013-0093-6 It was published in 2013.

The reality is that this requirement would require A LOT of wood purchased by contractors to be thrown away because of defects. There can be no ASSUMPTION of safety just by buying it from a supplier. In my example Balcony work was done using defective wood, resulting in cracks forming in less than a year.

Garbage Used is Garbage Deliverd in this case. And contractors KNOW it. They do not want to provide any records of any testing on materials because of it. Their suppliers should test the wood and provide the results to contractors as an alternative. But suppliers are scared they will have to trash a lot of wood in their inventory.

And yet the City does not comply with building codes, thus city residents are stuck with residences with a reasonable doubt of safety because of a lack of testing and record keeping.

Fishscapes, Milk Pail, Bierhaus, Sprouts... all gone to make room for Facebook and of legions tech bros. Now they are leaving town, maybe you can ask those businesses to come back? I don't think that's how it works unfortunately. At least some billionaire Atherton developers made it rich(er).

I don't understand this "Mountain View is building offices" narrative. Companies are building offices. Companies are generally not known for spending money on things they don't need.

I would be happy to see the office building proposed for the Milk Pail site replaced with apartments. But if someone goes ahead and builds it, they must think there's a market for it, and I think they know better than the armchair analysts who comment on Voice articles.

Ivg, in the world before Yimbys, towns had a quaint power known as "local control". Most every proposal has supporters and objectors, each side would make their case to the leaders of the town, who would then - as elected representatives for the entire community - make the final decision, yay or nay. They would presumably make the decision based on what was best for the community as a whole. So the expression 'MV is building offices' refers to the fact that the leaders of MV have formally approved the construction of office space.

You are correct that MV does not build offices. In the same vein, MV does not build residential housing. The majority of the time it is DEVELOPERS who build both. They aren't interested in what is best for the community, they want to maximize their profits, just like every other for profit business. Without government interference, they would focus entirely on building offices and market rate housing. Whether that situation is acceptable or unacceptable depends on ones political views.

The office towers at San Antonio Center were speculation. They were not built by companies which planned to occupy them. The developer leased them long term to WeWork which still has the leases and has to pay for them, empty or not. WeWork had thought they had subleased them to Facebook but Meta has an out to he deal. That's why the buildings are empty. WeWork typically has a lot of different tenants in their buildings. There's another building owned by a different office space coworking provider on El Camino at Castro. That space also now has vacancies. WeWork is in danger of a full bankruptcy for other reasons.

If the 2 buildings at San Antonio Center remain empty, new state laws encourage the owner to convert them to housing. But it's not clear there is a demand for housing anyway.

JUst an Observation,

WAIT, longresident, are you saying that the City expected that this project was going to collapse?

WeWork is falling apart, you cannot say that it will even survive the next 12 months. WeWork stock lost more than 70% this year, it was originally offered at $10. but is now only $2.60. The fact is WeWork is going to go out of business.

There are so many people who initially invested in it, so you have those with conflicts of interest trying to promote the stock, even today, and yet it still loses money. For the q3 and q4 of 2021 the business had a total of $47.3M in assets but also has $48.95M in liabilities, in effect it lost $1.65M and that was when the bubble of real estate was still in effect. The current year is going to be a major disaster.

The fact that property values are dropping in the Commercial Sector even worse than residential. This whole project was a house of cards, and EVERYONE knew it. The idea that this cities council got suckered into it was amazing. To many people think the so called Gig economy was reliable. That has proven to be a failure as well. Practically all so called gig or internet based businesses are failing.

Just look at OpenDoor, Zillow, Redfin, Lyft, Uber and others. They all are dropping jobs and becoming junk stock investments.

What a disaster of a plan, And you think that Alphabet(Google) is going to save this city. No , they are going to adopt the same Work From Home model, and very likely going to write off all of the campuses for tax benefits.

This city is heading over a cliff, and the city council just disabled the brakes