MOUNTAIN See — A purchasing middle serving Mountain View and Palo Alto has missing three of its key anchor tenants in the earlier handful of months, but officers say fears it will be redeveloped into housing are unfounded.
Mountain See Mayor Lucas Ramirez says the operator isn’t hunting to alter something about the Charleston Plaza, a searching middle nestled on the Mountain Watch-Palo Alto border alongside Highway 101 that as soon as housed a Bed Tub & Outside of, REI and Ideal Get.
All 3 of those people shops have still left in the previous calendar year. Bed Bath & Beyond was the to start with massive-box retailer to depart, shutting down its area at the start off of 2021. Months later on, REI Co-op announced it would transfer its shop to a new, even larger site in Sunnyvale. And in Oct Greatest Get claimed it would near its shop at Charleston Plaza way too.
The closures are a tiny taste for the Bay Spot of what is going on across the country, with procuring facilities on the lookout much more like ghost towns as vendors continue to struggle to contend with the likes of retail giants like Amazon and Walmart. Best Get and Mattress Bathtub & Past have been systematically closing outlets and laying off personnel around the previous several several years.
Greatest Buy announced in February it would be laying off 5,000 workers and prepared to near their shop on Charleston Road. The company is attempting to aim its long run functions on on the internet gross sales and dwelling deliveries.
Bed Bathtub & Over and above has gone via a comparable downsizing, announcing in January 2021 that it would close 200 places like the a person at Charleston Plaza.
The retail exodus at the plaza has locals afire, with many fearing that the plaza will be redeveloped into places of work or housing. Mayor Ramirez stated he’s acquired inquiries from people about the future of that space, but added that redeveloping the plaza isn’t a most likely scenario.
“The property operator is seeking new tenancies regular with the existing zoning and general program, so it will be comparable forms of shops,” Ramirez reported. “That spot wasn’t determined as a ‘change area’ in the common prepare, so the council doesn’t have any current strategies to explore rezoning there to let housing.”
Ramirez said the space would only adjust if the non-public house homeowners of the plaza were being to submit an software and go by way of the city’s “gatekeeper process,” and that has not occurred nevertheless. And even if the developer were being to submit an application, the metropolis council would have the closing say.
Nonetheless, Ramirez said the vacant storefronts offer an possibility for the local community to benefit while the owner finds new tenants. He reported he is speaking with the city and county to probably use the spot for interim or shorter-time period works by using like COVID-19 clinics or other group-centered products and services.
“I’ve gotten a couple of requests from people in the neighborhood to improve COVID-19 testing capability, and that is one thing that would be challenging to make occur promptly,” Ramirez mentioned. “But the town is doing work with the county and El Camino Wellness to give screening. I imagine that’s accurately the type of short-phrase use that would be dependable with the have to have the city has.”
