A 120-foot-high, eight-story building with three levels of structured parking, four floors of offices, a top-floor restaurant, a first-floor cafe and a rooftop garden has been proposed at 1075 O'Brien Drive and 20 Kelly Court to replace a single-story warehouse there.
The proposal is part of an expansion plan by the biotech company, CS Bio, a peptide and peptide synthesizer manufacturer.
The Menlo Park Planning Commission is scheduled to discuss the project Monday, July 17.
The proposed building is the first in the newly created "life sciences" zoning category that came out of the city's "ConnectMenlo" general plan update.
The plan would be in the life sciences district and would be eligible for "bonus" development, meaning CS Bio would be able to opt to build at a higher density in exchange for providing community benefits.
In that category of development, the maximum height is 110 feet, with an allowance to add 10 feet if the building is in the city's potential flood zone, which applies to this property, according to Associate Planner Tom Smith with the city of Menlo Park.
According to project drawings, the development would have a coffee shop and parking on the first floor and a top-floor restaurant with a rooftop garden and deck.
As community amenities, the owner has also proposed a publicly accessible basketball court and a vocational program. No further information is available yet on the vocational program. The basketball court is proposed to be put on the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way, so it would have to be permitted by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, according to staff.
According to Mr. Smith, the new building would be used only for office space, not for manufacturing purposes. On the east side of the site, the company plans to add a chemical storage bunker.
CS Bio, which has two buildings at its 20 Kelly Court site, has proposed to merge the properties, so that the average height of all three buildings will be below the maximum average height for a property of 67.5 feet.
The timeline for the project, Mr. Smith said, depends on the type of environmental analysis that will be needed, which is currently unknown. He said that planning staff wanted to submit the plans to the Planning Commission early, "before they get too far with the design," he said.
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