Portola Valley gives advice on proposed hotel, office complex Portola Valley gives advice on proposed hotel, office complex (October 19, 2005)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

While Portola Valley has no official say on Stanford's plans for a new luxury hotel and office complex on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, residents still have a raft of opinions.

The 120-room hotel and office complex should be built green and sustainable, members of the Town Council and audience told representatives of Stanford and the design team October 12, when they made a courtesy call to present their plans to Portola Valley

Councilmen Ted Driscoll and Steve Toben urged the developers to go for the gold -- to seek to meet the gold standard set by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Hewlett Foundation building, just down Sand Hill Road, was the first building in California to be certified as "gold" by the council.

"I'd like to see Stanford take some leadership," said Mr. Driscoll.

Bill Phillips of Stanford Land Management said it's too early to make any commitments, but added, "We'll work hard for sustainability."

Mr. Phillips and architect John Hill, a principal of Hill Glazier Architects of Palo Alto, described the project to build a 165,000-square-foot hotel and 100,000 square feet of office space on the 21-acre parcel on Sand Hill Road between the former Addison Wesley complex and Interstate 280.

"We want to create a resort-like project," said Mr. Hill, a former resident of Portola Valley who has designed resort hotels around the world, including the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay. The style will be California rural vernacular, inspired by famous architects Cliff May and William Wurster, he said.

Plans for a 387-room Westin Hotel on the same site fizzled in the 1980s after a long and contentious fight.

The five-star hotel will be operated by Rosehill Hotel and Resorts. They are "very high-end," said Mr. Phillips. They operate 12 hotels from Texas to Tokyo, Djakarta, Saudi Arabia and the Caribbean.

The new hotel and offices will consist of one- and two-story buildings stepped down the hill, Mr. Hill said.

Plans call for a restaurant, swimming pool, fitness center and spa, meeting and banquet facilities, and five villas for extended stays. Natural foothill vegetation will come to the perimeter of the site, and buildings will be designed to provide views of the foothills.

"We tried to break (things) down into the smallest components possible," Mr. Hill said. "We'll have as many individual projects as possible, and keep a residential scale with courtyards."

Mr. Phillips noted the project would generate 2,300 cars per day. Stanford is proposing a shuttle service to connect with surrounding offices and development, he said.

Several speakers were concerned about the density of the project and its visual impact on I-280 and neighboring rural areas. "Any way you cut it, it's going to have a real impact at the edge of an urban area," said former Councilman Jon Silver.

Town planner George Mader recommended that planting within the development reflect the surrounding areas rather than featuring vertical trees and non-native plants.

Mr. Mader also suggested the project include some affordable housing so employees would not have to commute so far. "It's not uncommon in big projects to have some affordable housing," he said. "I hope Menlo Park will at least think about it."

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