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“To prosperity, new beginnings, and managed growth,” Menlo Park Mayor Rich Cline toasted to a small crowd gathered around shiny shovels at 1400 El Camino Real, the site where ground was broken Wednesday for a 61-room, four-story boutique hotel.
Fran Dehn, president and CEO of the Menlo Park Chamber of Commerce, told the group the hotel fits the city’s needs as laid out in the El Camino Real/downtown specific plan and the regional Grand Boulevard Initiative.
“We’re a unique city and you’re bringing us exactly what we need,” she said.
In addition to guest rooms, the hotel will have an event room, restaurant and bar and 75 underground parking spots.
It is also expected to generate about $604,000 a year in revenue for the city via its transient occupancy tax. Portola Valley-based developer Pollock Financial Group, which is building the hotel, said hotel employees and guests will get free Caltrain passes and employees will get additional transit subsidies. The hotel could also host live entertainment.
A Shell gasoline station used to be on the half-acre site.
City Councilwoman Catherine Carlton said the hotel would be “something beautiful, instead of blight and fencing.”
Delighted to see growth and thoughtful developments coming to MP!
Kim, I can only hope you’re right. Half as much would have been much better. No?
Mr. Cline believes in “managed ” growth!
While a “small hotel” is a welcomed project, the rest of the growth Mr. Cline and his council have approved is massive – in the millions of square feet. The general plan allows 2 million square feet of office developments west of bay shore freeway and a city wide population of over 50,000 by 2040. Is the MP school district paying attention?
Maybe “managed” to Mr Cine means let city manager McIntyre and business guy Cogan follow their plan to urbanize Menlo Park. San Jose seems to be the model. Let the city manager “manage” and the council will follow.
I’m waiting for mr. Cogan to find downtown property owners who will partner with developers to redevelop properties that add two floors of housing, just like the specific plan designed.
Congratulations on the small hotel. Easy approval.
Thanks to the Planning Commission who pushed the developers to greatly improve the project aesthetics as originally proposed.
Just be grateful its a small hotel and not like the behemonth you see when you go up San Antonio road and turn right on Edith to get to Foothill Express Way That hotel sticks out like a sore thumb. At least this one in menlo park looks like it will fit in with the surrounding neighborhood. Just wait until they develop Roger Reynolds former garden business on glenwood avenue. That will still out like a sore thumb because the lot is so big I hate progress. Its all about people with money coming into town and turning everything upside down.
It is over 3000 feet walking distance to the MP train station. We will just see how many will walk to or from there. As El Camino becomes more and more like a parking lot and less and less like a corridor to move traffic, this project and others in the pipeline in a few years will wonder
“what were they thinking”
Just what Menlo Park needs, a boutique hotel!!! 🙁
What about affordable senior housing?!?!?
“$604,000 a year in revenue”, and still the No Birds keep chirping! If it’s not one thing, it’s always something else
Fifty years ago, the people who lived next to the empty lot that is now your house complained about “progress,” too.
“To prosperity, new beginnings, and managed growth,” the mayor said.
“We’re a unique city and you’re bringing us exactly what we need,” the president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce said.
I think this tells us all we need to know, and already knew, about how deeply Menlo Park cares about the housing crisis for people in this area who fall in the middle and lower class earnings brackets– a discussion, it was reported this week in the Almanac, that could not even be scheduled due to so many other pressing priorities.
I drove past the circle of privileged people, well dressed and having celebratory drinks, as they stood on the empty lot, toasting this project, and I simply felt sad.
Actions speak louder than words, Menlo Park, and your heart is clearly reflected in your choices and priorities.
Amy, did you drive by the groundbreaking event earlier this year for the new housing development on Willow in Belle Haven? Lots of people dressed up and snacking and looking smart – to announce 95 below market residential units? No?
Just keep to your white wash narrative – even if it is BS, the media will cover it over and over.
And before you say, only 95? Check out new below market developments in Palo Alto or Woodside or Atherton or even Mt. View and San Carlos and Redwood City. Not much out there.
Facts are boring though.
For those concerned about lack of housing, note that adding to our low hotel room stock will displace the AirBnB’s locally that are taking away possible rentals. It’s all interconnected.
Now, the City of Menlo Park should focus on outlawing AirBNB, like other similar cities have done. It’s worsening the affordable housing problem, causing crime, and robbing legitimate hotels of revenue and the City of TOT taxes. Ban AirBNB, please.
But then again, the success of AirBnB is because hotels seem to be either way to expensive or sad and pathetic places. It certainly fills a need…..
If you view the offerings on the AirBNB site, you can see that the “sad and pathetic” descriptors apply more the AirBNB offerings than to our local hotel offerings. Few Menlo Park home owners feel okay about paying our outrageous property taxes while an untaxed virtual hotel is operating next door. Home owners buy with the understanding that they are living in a residential neighborhood, not in a hotel district. Also, it’s unfair that the VAST MAJORITY of AirBNB’ers have failed to pay any TOT to Menlo Park. They are taking advantage of us all.
Interested – Go peddle your SJW pablum somewhere else.