After sailing through with unanimous approvals from the Planning Commission, Facebook’s plan for its Constitution Drive campus heads to the City Council for a final review on Tuesday, March 26.
The social media company wants to build an “office in a forest” designed by architect Frank Gehry on its west campus at 312 and 313 Constitution Drive in Menlo Park, across from its headquarters off Willow Road.
The council will vote tonight on the series of permits, ordinance and rezoning adjustments, and below-market-rate housing agreement.
Also on the agenda: the proposal to convert a senior residential property to an extended-stay Marriott Residence Inn.
The city and the applicant estimate the hotel would add about $669,000 to Menlo Park’s annual revenue, mainly through the 12 percent transient occupancy tax. Under the proposed contract, if the hotel fails to provide the city with “a minimum amount of 50 percent of total room occupancy operating revenue for two consecutive years” — Menlo Park can require the hotel to pay the difference or provide another public benefit, reduce the size of the project, or revert the site to a senior living facility.
Menlo Park’s new downtown specific plan would require 173 off-street parking spaces for the hotel. The applicant, however, proposes 113 spaces — 74 on site and 39 public parking spaces on Garwood Way currently used by the senior home. The Planning Commission gave the plan a thumbs up in March, but recommended that the city limit the hotel’s exclusive use of the public to five years to encourage the proprietors to make other arrangements to provide sufficient parking.
Review the agenda and associated staff reports online.
Typo?
“but recommended that the city limit the hotel’s exclusive use of the public to five years”
The phrase seems to be missing a word. Public spaces perhaps?
NO to the parking proposal by Marriott. Giving exclusive use of public parking spaces to a for-profit commercial enterprise should be illegal, if it isn’t now. I’d like exclusive use of the street parking in front of my house, too.
MP is salivating over the possibility of getting transient tax money & is evidently willing to waive its own laws to get it. Bad precedent.
It would be a violation of the California Constitution (which explicitly prohibits gifts of public property) and a horrible precedent (why not do this for every other proposed development in the city) to give the Marriott Residence Inn Garwood Way (even for five years) for the Inn to meet its parking requirements. The city should enter into a long term, prepaid lease at market rates with Marriott for this property.
The transient occupancy tax was passed by the voters without any provision of offsetting that tax by providing city land at no cost to the hotels impacted by that tax.