Stanford officials mum on hotel Stanford officials mum on hotel (March 02, 2005)

By Rebecca Wallace

Almanac Staff Writer

Despite newspaper reports and persistent rumors that a deal is near on bringing a major hotel chain to Stanford University-owned land in Menlo Park, Stanford officials have not been reachable for comment.

In the last few days, the Palo Alto Daily News has run several stories quoting Bill Phillips, director of the Stanford Land Management Company, as saying that Stanford officials are just weeks away from signing an agreement to bring a 120-room luxury resort to 21 acres at Sand Hill Road and Interstate 280.

According to the stories, Mr. Phillips did not name the hotel chain, but said the resort would be "exclusive" and would have a major restaurant and several large meeting rooms. He also reportedly said Stanford would build an office building on the site as well.

Mr. Phillips did not return repeated phone calls from the Almanac.

David Johnson, Menlo Park's business development manager, said he and other city officials had been in talks with Stanford for some time about different possibilities for building a hotel on the land, including hotel-office and hotel-residential development. They had also discussed different types of hotels, including luxury and mid-range.

But Mr. Johnson said the report that Stanford was so close to an agreement on a luxury hotel was news to him.

"Not all private corporations share with us all the details of their transactions," he said. "We're intrigued by what we've read and we look forward to a full release of information from Stanford as well."

Last year, City Manager David Boesch told the Almanac that he'd be happy to speak with hotel officials about bringing a hotel to the site, because of the potential for added tax revenues. Officials said then that Menlo Park gets about a million dollars annually in transient occupancy tax from its existing hotels.

Set at 10 percent of the room rate, hotel taxes are charged to the customer and go right into city coffers. In comparison, cities must divide sales-tax revenues with state and county governments.

The Sand Hill site drew interest from Westin Hotels and Resorts in the 1980s, but the project didn't become a reality.

The response to the plan from other council members was mixed. While Lee Duboc said she knew no details about the project and hadn't spoken to Stanford officials, she said the remote site is ideal for a hotel because it won't bring more traffic downtown.

Andy Cohen, though, said the project could cause traffic troubles on Sand Hill Road, especially because an office building would need services such as supply stores and copy facilities nearby. Either new facilities would have to be built, or the occupants of the office building would add to traffic heading downtown, he said.

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