Comments on proposed redevelopment of Alma Plaza

By Doug Moran

Introduction

The priority for this site is to have neighborhood-serving retail that is economically viable. The applicant's proposal appears to allocate 80-85% of the site to housing: About two-thirds of the site are the Greenbriar homes, and there are two floors of apartments over the single floor of retail (the underground area and parking make the calculation approximate).

I make no pretense at having expertise in shopping center development, but the amount of housing that the applicant claims is necessary to subsidize the small amount of retail is surprising and troubling.

As a site designated to be a neighborhood center, I would suggest that the Commission start with retail and include housing only where

It enhances the retail center - for example, providing needed transitions that cannot be provided by retail operations.
It occupies space that cannot be used for retail.
It is absolutely necessary to subsidize the retail.

Site difficulties

The applicant (and the staff report) enumerate difficulties that this site poses for retail. However, as the dates on the studies cited show, these difficulties were well known when the Comprehensive Plan reconfirmed Alma Plaza as a neighborhood center, and later when the applicant purchased the property (and hence were presumably factored into the price).

My personal experience with Alma Plaza suggests that the difficulty of unsignalized left-turns may be overstated. It is admittedly a problem during much of evening peak hours. However, when going there outside of peak hours, the delays I faced making left turns into and out of the center have been acceptable, and my recollection of them is that they were comparable to the waits at the signalized intersections.

Site Advantages

In the workshops I have attended on land-use planning related to retail, the basic theme have been "Retail loves retail" - viability of individual stores is enhanced by having other retail in the immediate area. This is broken down into:

Critical number of retail operations - each can help generate customers for the other (and has the additional benefit of trip reduction).
Critical density - the less walking people have to do between stores, the better. Non-retail uses - offices, housing - interspersed with retail weaken the district.
Some combinations work better than others. Consequently, malls and strip malls that are actively managed by the landlord perform better than uncoordinated collections of stores. An example cited in these workshops: Women's shoe stores all do better when grouped together, but a shoe store next to a restaurant will result in worse business for both.

In his prior presentations, the applicant has suggested that commercial space along El Camino Real and San Antonio Road would be an appropriate replacement for Alma Plaza.

This "availability" is based upon vacancy rates, and not the identification of specific sites, thereby precluding the ability to compare the viability of those alternatives to Alma Plaza.
The circumstances along El Camino would seem to present far more problems than Alma Plaza (see appendix).
Unlike Alma Plaza, the current zoning of most of these alternatives allows them to be redeveloped as housing, which would provide a larger ROI (return on investment) under current economic conditions.

The unresolved problems for retail along El Camino go back even further than those for Alma Plaza: It was the focus of a series of CPAC (Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee) workshops in the early 1990s, and was regarded as a serious festering problem at that time. Very little has been done to address these problems in the intervening years.

More than a grocery store

With the property's limitation on the size of the grocery store, it may be advisable not to think of it as "the anchor." Rather view the center has having a number of stores that each serve as the primary attractor for a portion of the center's overall business, and that the grocery store is likely the largest attractor. For example, people using a coffee shop for meetings could duck into the grocery store to pick up "a few things." Similarly for an ATM machine.

Consequently, the applicant's proposal seems to have far too few retail locations to create the synergies necessary for a viable center.

Personal experience: I shopped at multiple grocery stores, with the choice being largely determined by convenience - can I combine it with another trip. Because Fry's is one of my major destinations within Palo Alto, I frequently shop at Mollie Stone's because it is the most convenient location (just down Park Blvd).

Determining Viability

The early success of Walmart was based upon the recognition that there was more retail business in small towns than most people realized. I suspect that the various reports by consultants grossly underestimate the potential of Alma Plaza because they overweight the structural problems and underweight problems with the business plan and its execution (particularly for the Lucky/Albertson's store). For example, Midtown had its structural problems, but has become a vibrant shopping district.

The number of small stores that vigorously resisted being pushed out of Alma Plaza is a strong indicator that Alma Plaza could be a viable location for such stores - far more than are in the applicant's proposal.
Caveat: This intuition doesn't factor in the inevitable change in rental rates (new vs. old buildings).

I disagree with the applicant's assessment that the new Whole Foods in Mountain View will be a serious competitor - WF charges super premium prices. The likely competitors are the existing stores: Midtown Safeway and Safeway and Albertson's in Mountain View, and partly Piazza's.

Appendix - Potential demographic target for grocery store

Palo Alto's demographics would seem favorable to a mid-sized grocery store in this location: There are a high number of small households. Many of these small household like fresh meat and produce, so they make trips to the grocery store at frequent intervals, and purchase various non-perishables at the same time. JJ&F and Mollie Stone's are my primary grocery stores, and many of the shoppers I see are using hand baskets instead of carts. When I shop at Piazza's, I also see a large proportion of smaller purchases.

The complaint I hear from many of these smaller households is that Mollie Stone's and Piazza's are too expensive for ordinary food stuffs, but that they don't like going to the large grocery stores, where the emphasize is on customers who buy cartloads of groceries,

Appendix - Additional potential sources of customers

Alma Plaza is near the school superblock, which can generate customers
- Experience: stores along El Camino on the routes used by Gunn HS students (Los Robles and Maybell, El Camino Way): Personal observation indicates that these stores get a fair amount of traffic from the HS students.
- Students (walking, biking, ...) as customers
- Trip-combining by parents picking up students - this
Easy drop-in by residents returning home from work along north-bound Alma.
Workers destined for Stanford and Stanford Research Park: If they are commuting up Central Expressway to Alma, they pass by Alma Plaza. A bakery and a coffee store, with proper promotion, would be a convenient quick stop for food stuffs for the office (a grocery store might also benefit from those offices offering healthier fare).
Along a major route to Mitchell Park, including the potential next Main Library.

Appendix - Mixed Use, proceed with caution

The applicant proposes putting apartments over the retail. In the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) workshops on mixed use, it was emphasized that only some mixes worked effectively. The two big factors were:

Parking patterns needed to be complementary. For example, professional offices (e.g., dentists, accountants) had patterns that meshed very well with housing. However, grocery stores often did not because their peak shopping hours were often in the early evening, coinciding with when people in the housing were returning from work.
Quiet operation in the evening. Housing over grocery stores was used as an example of a bad match because restocking was often done late or early and that noise could be a significant problem for those living above.

Note: It has been over a decade since the CPAC workshops, so improvements in building technology may have made the noise issue less of a problem. Also, if the mixed use is along Alma, the noise from the street and Caltrain may render the noise from the grocery store less of a problem. However, remember that different types of noise are perceived differently - most people can tune out the constant dull roar of traffic but find voices and clanking distracting and irritating.

The issue of noise in Mixed Use should not be dismissed by saying that people who live there have chosen to accept the situation. Various merchants on California Avenue have complained about what they view as unwarranted noise complaints from people who have chosen to live near the business district. Another example: In Carlsbad (north of San Diego), a developer got the land next to the airport rezoned for housing despite opposition based upon predictions of the oblivious problem. The lawsuits against the airport started even before all the houses in the development had been finished.

We don't want ill-advised mixed use to create a situation where stores are forced to limit their operation, and thereby threaten their viability.

Appendix - Retail potential of El Camino overstated

In public presentations, the applicant has cited commercial space along El Camino and San Antonio as more than adequate to make up for the loss of neighborhood-serving retail at Alma Plaza. While I cannot speak to the potential of San Antonio, I find it very unlikely that El Camino could serve as a substitute.

I served on the Citizens Advisory Group for the El Camino/Caltrans Design Study project. Part of its considerations were how street design interacted with the viability of the retail south of Stanford Avenue, and to incorporate measures to improve that situation. A range of problems related to the relative invisibility of many of the stores from people driving by. An illustrative example was that a skateboard shop that moved there from Mountain View. His biggest problem was visibility: His old customers tried to follow him, but had problems finding him, and he got very few new customers.

I served on the first Mayor's ad hoc Committee on Retail that focused on retention of existing retail operations. Based upon my earlier experience, I suggested that improved signage along El Camino would help those merchants. This included indicating the existence of parking behind the stores and provision of easily readable signs giving cross-streets and address-number blocks (so that customers could at least find the appropriate block). To my knowledge, no progress has been made - or is planned - on this basic infrastructure improvement.

A very difficult problem for south El Camino is that many of the properties are too small to accommodate many common categories of retail, and combining properties has proven to be extremely difficult (when El Camino was widened in the late 1950's or early 1960's, they went from small to too-small).

As a result, most of the recent development along south El Camino has be conversion of retail to housing or to offices (with the exceptions being primarily restaurants).

Appendix: All-American Market closing

In public presentations, the applicant has cited the closure of the All-American Market (at El Camino and Los Robles) as evidence that neighborhood-serving markets had serious problems as a class. My experience is the reverse. All-American failed because the owner failed to execute - possibly because he was losing interest in the business. It was not because the neighborhood failed to shop at the store.

Rumors of its potential closing produced strong expressions of support for continued operation.
For several years after the closure, getting a replacement market was the highest priority in surveys conducted by the BPA, and was a major focus of the BPA Board.
Even now - more than 8 years after the closure - getting another market is oft mentioned by residents.

Note: These are statements of people who actually shopped at the market before it closed and would shop at a replacement (near that site). It is not the less reliable type of survey where people are asked, in the abstract, whether they would shopped at a store should it move in.

The owner of the All-American Market would have had even a stronger business had he not repeatedly "shot himself in the foot." The biggest mistake was that he refused to adapt his offerings to the changing needs of his customers (and these customers had given him feedback). For example,

Low quality produce (appearance and taste)
Didn't carry types of bread that many people wanted
"Off-putting" meat
When customers purchased meat that turned out to be bad, he gave them a difficult time.

Personal experience: For picking up things on my way home from work, JJ&F was the most convenient, but was often closed before I got there (at the time, it closed at 7pm). All-American was the next most convenient, but after being repeatedly disappointed, I dropped it as an option and went to the markets on California Avenue when JJ&F was closed.