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Published on 07/21/1997 All articles from this issue

From restaurants to hotels, Mountain View is on the move

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By Clyde Noel

Town Crier Staff Reporter

In the 1850s Mountain View was a little settlement at El Camino Real and Grant Road. It was all commercial: a hotel, blacksmith shop, four saloons and three general stores.

Today, with a population of 72,987, Mountain View enjoys a strong and diversified local economy. It is home to 11 percent of the county's top firms including five of the Fortune 500 companies. Five of California's fastest-growing companies are headquartered there. The city enjoys a lively mix of retail, research and development and professional services.

The city's recently published economic development highlights show 1996 was a banner year, and 1997 promises to be every bit as successful.

A total of 2.8 million square feet of commercial, office and R&D space has been approved or is under construction. Silicon Graphics, Inc. and Netscape will occupy most of the new R&D space, with 556,000 and 850,000 square feet respectively. In addition, city staff anticipates 700,000 square feet in proposals which have not yet entered the development review process.

Earlier this month, city council approved the addition of two major hotels on El Camino Real near Highway 85: the 177-room Westin ClubSport and a 165-room Hilton Garden Inn. Both are in the design review process. The 134-hotel room Homestead Village hotel is under construction across the street.

When the hotels are completed they will fatten the city budget with more than $1 million a year in tax revenues.

Virtually all major retail centers in Mountain View have been expanded or renovated within the last two years. Few vacant retail sites exist. Several commercial sites are being cleared for new projects and spaces larger than 10,000 square feet are hard to find.

Here's a summary of major retail and commercial projects that would make any city envious:

Lucky Center (El Camino Real East and The Americana):

The shopping center, next to the former Emporium site, is a renovation of the 52,000-square-foot Lucky supermarket. Construction should be completed before Thanksgiving.

Mountain View Center (El Camino Real East and Grant Road):

This shopping center, anchored by a Walgreen Drug Store, is being updated and remodeled. Boston Market will open a second Mountain View location here. Construction should finish this summer.

San Antonio Center (San Antonio Road and El Camino Real West):

The center continues to do well following the multi-million dollar renovation and opening of Wal-Mart in December 1994. The center has approximately 400,000 square feet and 35 tenants. Combined with adjacent parcels, the total retail square footage is more than 800,000.

Plans have been approved for a new 6,000 square foot store which may be leased to Hollywood Video. A Lucky Food Center store will take over the 43,000 square foot former Best Products location on the California Street side of the center across from Safeway.

Bailey Park Center (North Shoreline Boulevard and Montecito Avenue)

The Safeway supermarket is expanding by 16,000 square feet.

Downtown revitalization

Downtown office vacancy is estimated to be 0.35 percent according to Cornish & Carey Commercial. City staff estimates that downtown retail vacancy is less than 1 percent with only small units available. According to city officials, this is the lowest vacancy rate in the six years detailed records have been kept.

Rents for office space range from $2.40 per square foot for full service, to $1.75 to $2.00 "triple net," with the tenant paying all expenses, for ground-floor retail.

"New business are coming into the downtown all the time," said Liesa Fulton, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce.

New private ventures include:

Cafe Don Giovanni, 234 Castro St., a new Italian restaurant on the former California Bakery site.

Fibber McGee's, 233 Castro St., a successful Irish pub from Sunnyvale is opening a second location in Mountain View.

Rio Grande, 228 Castro St., the former Mountain View Theater is undergoing renovation to accommodate a new country-Western club.

Mountain Bay Plaza, 444 Castro St., Travelers Insurance Company owns the property and controls the lease. Bank of America has been remodeled and software companies Zip2 and Intrinsa have taken 30,000 square feet on the ground floor.

Posh Bagel is beginning construction of a 2,000-square-foot cafe on the ground floor.

In April, the San Francisco Chronicle ranked the Bay Area "Top 150" firms on the basis of market value. Mountain View had 10 of those firms: Acuson, Intuit, Netscape Communications, Network Appliance, Protein Design Labs, Remedy, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Synopsis and Veritas Software.

With the 1996 departure of Adobe Systems, Mountain View's challenge is retaining growing companies with its small amount of space. According to Fulton, new companies interested as space becomes available keep Mountain View on the move.

The Community Development Department is located at 500 Castro St. For more information, call 903-6306.