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Facebook’s plans for a 3.45 million square foot housing, office and retail development along Willow Road in eastern Menlo Park should come as no surprise, Menlo Park Mayor Kirsten Keith says.
The proposal, she said in an interview, is consistent with what the city planned for during its two-year-plus general plan update process, completed last November.
“I would say that as we look to the Bay Area and what’s happening in our neck of the woods – this is an area that will continue to grow. We can either choose to plan for it, or we don’t plan.”
“There’s always concern with change, but this is what we all worked up,” she said, referring to the many community and stakeholder input meetings held during the general plan update process. “I think Facebook’s making a very good effort at actually building a lot of housing. … I feel blessed to live in a community where people do want to develop. A lot of places don’t have that opportunity.”
The project could generate the demand, she said, to reactivate the Dumbarton rail corridor, which runs by the property.
Reactivation could provide a transit connection from the Redwood City train station to Facebook and East Palo Alto. A transbay crossing could come later. Results from a SamTrans study of Dumbarton corridor options to ease traffic congestion are expected in the coming months.
“We have to show the numbers,” Mayor Keith said. “We have to show that it’s a viable solution.” Adding 1,500 new housing units and a lot more employees to a site along the corridor, she said, “bolsters the case.”
Ms. Keith said she expects it will take a lot of work among various agencies to acquire funding for the project.
To help attract funding, she said, the City Council is considering hiring a lobbyist who might work in Sacramento, Washington, D.C., or both. She said she, City Manager Alex McIntyre and Jim Cogan, housing and economic development manager, interviewed potential lobbyists during a Washington D.C., visit earlier this year.
Grocery store
Menlo Park Councilman Peter Ohtaki said he was excited to see the grocery store planned for the first phase of the Facebook project, along with other retail. “A grocery store is what Belle Haven residents have been asking for since 2013 and is badly needed to serve the neighborhood in that area,” he said.
“It certainly appears to be a innovation zone,” he said of the Facebook proposal, which has the concept of “live, work, play” – or housing, office, retail and outdoor spaces – built into it.
“While I have not seen the details, and I certainly reserve judgment until I see details, I was certainly pleased to see those aspects in what they’ve announced so far,” he said.
Several people contacted by the Almanac said it was too early to comment on the project.
“My understanding is that the development will be undergoing an (environmental impact review) by the City,” Councilman Ray Mueller said. “As such, I am going to refrain from making conclusions about the development until the appropriate time in the process.”
Several Menlo Park planning commissioners said they were looking forward to reviewing the plans and didn’t have specific responses at this point.
Planning Commissioners Andrew Barnes and Larry Kahle said they felt they needed more information, and Commissioner Katherine Strehl noted that the project will eventually come before the Planning Commission. “That’s when we’ll have the opportunity to thrash it out.”
Planning Commission Drew Combs did not comment because he works for Facebook and will be recused from the matter during commission deliberations.
Community response
Facebook invited some residents of the community to preview the plans before they were submitted to the city.
Diane Bailey, executive director of Menlo Spark, a local environmental nonprofit, said the project, from an environmental perspective, is “great news for the community.”
The proposal indicates the development would work toward a net zero energy goal and would plan to recycle water. Letting people live near where they work or go to school, she said, is the “single largest environmental mitigation you can design.”
Rachel Bickerstaff, a Belle Haven resident, who had previewed the plans, declined a request for comment.
Comments were not received by press time by Councilman Rich Cline or last year’s council candidate Cecilia Taylor. Councilwoman Catherine Carlton said she was traveling and will return this week.
Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am
We have got to get rid of this mayor!
Conceptually, the idea makes sense… live/work/play is like work/life/balance. They’re terms of a utopian situation we all aspire to bring back… back in the days when 40 hours a week was sufficient for a mortgage, car, insurance, 1 family vacation a year, and 2.5 kids with a white picket fence… that life doesn’t exist anymore. It’s about 2 jobs, renting a crowded apartment, sharing a car, and maybe taking a weekend getaway – times are tough for the average Bay Area Non-Tech employee. I applaud Facebook for trying to make this new community, BUT it needs more transparency and ‘regular people’ to balance it out. Bottom line – 15% for affordable housing is not enough. Not only that, but if you are out of the affordable housing income bracket, how do you qualify for a spot? You can’t have a community filled with Facebook employees, and 15% of non facebook… or is that 15% reserved for the chefs, and cleaners, and people who do the menial jobs and probably qualify? How do we know there’s a balance in Facebook population vs Regular population? The City Council, the Mayor, the non profits should not be advocating for Facebook leaning interests but for the remainder of the city. They are appointed and/or elected by the community… not by the employees of facebook who will be coming to Menlo Park to work, and continue to have their Las Vegas or alternative residencies. How will Facebook guarantee at the minimum 50% of people in this project will not be related to anything having to do with Facebook? The City is going to find a lobbyist to try and secure funding from Sacramento for this? Those are government subsidies, and therefore, more of the project should be in the best interest of non-facebook interest. Why is it so hard to look out for the community and the people who are really struggling? Where are the real advocates and why are they not at the table?
Mayor Keith is on record as not being interested in transparency proposals this year. She said the City is too busy to consider them. She might consider them as part of next year’s goals.
We have a traffic problem in Menlo Park, I know the City Council does not see this or maybe they just don’t care but it exists and it is impacting the lives of the residents of Menlo Park. Building 1500 new units at one end of Menlo Park where basic services such as large grocery stores (yes I know they will build a grocery store as part of this but will it serve the needs completely?), banking, restaurants, and other services are located at the other end means you need to have a traffic solution and we do not. In fact there is not any solution that will be easy to solve this. I hope Menlo Park puts it foot down but given the poor planning from our current city council they need to be voted out before anything useful will likely happen.
Look kids a shiny object — ooooouh!
Time for a recall campaign.
Facebook should be required to build an underground road from 101 to bay………then all would be fine…until 101 is expanded
you need to have a traffic solution and we do not. The traffic on Willow has increased to double or triple what it was 10 years ago. There is a need for some way of dealing with the increased and the future increases of traffic. Just rebuilding the exit off of Willow will not deal with the flow of traffic. There needs to be more lanes added east of 101 on willow and also on Marsh to help mitigate the increase of traffic. In fact there is not any solution that will be easy to solve this. The idea of having a second level from 101 to 84 that is just freeway and no exits would help immensely.
These costs should be born by facebook which has had such a negative impact on our neighborhood….
There is an approach to the disaster which is Willow Road traffic in the General Plan. It is that somehow & sometime, never spelled out, Willow will become a type of boulevard with that area a ‘destination’ to be at, not a pass-through for regional traffic. This is wishful thinking at its worst. City council, staff and the General Plan consultants appear to know this but do not want it to hold up development led by Facebook. Fine, that’s where we’re at. The transit corridor possibility discussed in the article dies promise to be a great transformation for that entire part of town. And we should be grateful to Facebook for coding so much to promote that. Whether that alone will cure Willow congestion seems unlikely. It could be part of a solution, but somebody needs to start formulating that vision and articulating it to the community. Facebook, are you listening?
Why isn’t Facebook funding the whole boondoggle? The 1500 units doesn’t address current demand if Facebook is adding 1.7 Illi on sq ft of office. Maybe it addresses only demand induced by the project. Not clear.
I don’t live in Menlo Park, but would be excited to donate to and canvas for the re-call of ALL of Menlo Park’s leadership! They are in their own world and are destroying the very nature of Menlo Park & the reason why people moved here & have stayed in, Menlo Park – and the surrounding areas.
Where do we start the recall process?
Developement of this size should require regional input as this effects 3 counties, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda. It is time to put infrastructure in before the developments. A Bart line from
Union City to Redwood City (and up the peninsula to Milbrae rather than Cal Train) would allow access from the Peninsula to many more affordable communities. All workers looking for affordability would benefit from a shorter commute home, not just Facebook employees. It is time for our regional governments to look at the good of the whole rather than a select few so that all can enjoy this fantastic place. Sadly I feel the whole area will implode as we continue to neglect the variety of citizens a thriving community vitally needs to thrive.
A recall of the entire City Council all at once would more than likely fail. These people didn’t get elected without having friends in the community. Lumping them together decreases the chances of success. Target one though with a recall effort and the odds of success are greatly increased and you probably impact the whole council.
who and when authorized and payed for Mauor Keith to
Go to Washington to find a lobbyist?
It looks like ConnectMenlo has been going on for over 4 years (https://www.menlopark.org/809/Presentations-and-staff-reports), and some elements of this project fit with the General Plan Update. We may have a similar process to the Downtown Specific Plan and Stanford’s ECR Project: lots of proposals and subcommittee meetings, a failed NIMBY ballot measure followed by additional years of blight.
If Facebook is serious about investing in a new commuter rail line, it could eventually replace the Western portion of the ACE train (http://www.acerail.com/Getting-You-There/Maps-Stations). The other obvious solution is to simply paint BRT lanes on Dumbarton Bridge and setup a new agency to maintain fancy new busses like VTA is using. With all these freeways, there is no other option or incentive for people not to sit in gridlock.
Why is no one talking about the elephant in the room, Belle Haven School which serves all Belle Haven students from Kindergarten through 8th grade. it’s so dilapidated it would be condemned if it were inspected by city code violation inspectors.
And why aren’t they inspecting it.
FB is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for office space, hotels, parks, retail, housing, energy innovations, et al, and has never even mentioned the school which if you search the site “Great Schools” will show not only is it physically falling down and unsafe the school consistently ranks 1-2 out of 10 while every other school in Menlo Park ranks a 10.
Since FB won’t discuss it I would ask the M.A. to offer a direct question to each city council member and planning commissioner to give a direct answer to a direct question.
It may be in the Ravenswood School District but the school is in Menlo Park.
Mayor Kirsten Kieth,
What say ye beyond the pat answer of we don’t control it because it is part of Ravenswood School District,
Baloney, The money is there and our representatives can get more creative than that.
Face it, the city has bad plans despite (or because of?) spending millions on consultants.
While the downtown plan was supposed to provide guidance and do the environmental analysis for El Camino and dowtown properties, the 2 largest sites have pursued projects with greater impacts. So they have taken years to do their own EIRs and building is just beginning 5 years after the plans was adopted.
Now we see a similar and even worse phenomenon with the General Plan. Its ink is barely dry and now Facebook proposes a huge project that requires a new EIR. Somebody should be fired and the city should get its money back for plans that have no integrity.
Why does Facebook need government money in order to build on its own land?????
With all the traffic problems we have on the willow rd corridor it is insane to build this size of a development at the site proposed. It shows that this council and Keith just don’t care about all the traffic congestion on willow rd and its adjacent streets. This council has blinders on when it comes to traffic.
Ravenswood to El Camino
Willow rd to the Expressway
Middlefield to Willow
El Camino north and South
Menlo Oaks to El Camino at 4-6pm
No answers for any of this except to do nothing
It is awful that this city is drowning in traffic. Worse that the council is so development hungry that all its residents have to take 40 minutes to get across town. This Council and Keith need to go. This Council just rolls over for Facebook’s agenda
A minor point, but my understanding of the EIR is that the Connect Menlo EIR is for the overall framework and upzoning. Every large site afterwards needs its own EIR to deal with the specific proposals. This is pretty standard.
We need to hit up Caltrans for improvements or closing-off of Willow Road to cut-through traffic since it’s a State Highway. How about no connection at all from 101 to Dumbarton on Willow?
So we block willow road access and the traffic then flows over to marsh exit?? That is Absurd and not a solution..Menlo park has a population of what, 35,000? This development will drop another 15,000? people either living or commuting to menlo park, and people promoting it think it is a good thing for menlo park?? What good comes of this?
Insanity! Traffic on Willow, Marsh and Bayfront is already out of control. When the new EMP buildings by Marsh/101 open, things will only get worse. This FB plan will only make matters worse. The plan itself is horribly flawed. The visual shows a grocery store on the opposite side of the site from parking. Has the architect ever visited a supermarket to buy more than a 6-pack of beer?
Our city council members are so awed by Stanford and FB that they roll over and change the goalposts by rewriting the plan every time new development is proposed. Why do they forget that they were elected to represent the residents of MP? Seems ever since they beat back the residents over the Stanford project, they have been emboldened to approve everything.
MP should serve the needs of its residents first and foremost. Instead of asking how each new project will make the city more famous or less “blighted” or more attractive to Caltrain commuters or for friendly to Stanford, the first question should be “how can XXX make this city better for the people who already live here, and secondarily, for the businesses that pay local taxes?”
Menlo voters are responsible for Council’s ruination of city. Last election voted in Sharon
Heights resident turning away a bell haven resident. Bell haven has no council representation. Sharon heights is way away from Bell haven concerns,as are other council’s residences.
Ok, let’s not try to recall them all. Please – someone in Menlo Park pick one (the Mayor, or Vice-Mayor?) and let’s start the process. Otherwise no one will ever listen to the taxpayers.
Let me know where & when to join the effort. As a non-Menlo Part resident I can’t vote, but can donate & work as required. We have to do something before they destroy all of residential Menlo Park & its surroundings!
It is amazing that now so many West of 101 residents are concerned about traffic that has been reported a problem for over a decade by the residents most affected by the M2 development.
While obsessing over the Facebook announcement, an eight story mixed use building is being presented to the MP Planning Commission on Monday 7/17.
G1. Study Session/Jason Chang/1075 O’Brien Drive:
Request for a study session for the demolition of an existing single-story warehouse and manufacturing building and construction of a new eight-story mixed-use building with three levels of structured parking above grade, four floors of offices, a restaurant, café with outdoor seating, and rooftop garden in the LS-B (Life Sciences, Bonus) zoning district. The proposal also includes a request for a new chemical storage bunker on the east side of the existing building at 20 Kelly
Court. The parcels at 20 Kelly Court and 1075 O’Brien Drive would also be merged. Web Link
Note that the rules for M@ have already be set by the City Council. Those rules make NO provision for new police or fire stations or a library or even for significantly more housing.
Thank goodness for Facebook’s willingness to go beyond the rules and attempt to provide a comprehensive solution.
Unfortunately Facebook has zero ability to improve streets and roads that it does not own.