With Scarce Land, Approvals are Harder to Obtain
One mixed-use project, Ameswell Mountain View, located on one of the last fully entitled development sites in Mountain View, has bucked that notion and recently broke ground.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Given a dearth of buildable land in Mountain View, Palo Alto and Menlo Park, it is quite extraordinary that any projects get under the ground these days. The region’s overall availability rate declined by 200 basis points to 15.8% and has decreased by 130 basis points compared to mid-year 2017. Availability remains negligible in these core locations along with Sunnyvale/Cupertino with single-digit availability, according to a second quarter 2018 report by Savills Studley.
One project, located on one of the last fully entitled development sites in Mountain View, has bucked that notion. It comes on the heels of a 246,000-square-foot LEED Platinum office build-to-suit for Google Inc. at 1625 Plymouth in Mountain View’s Bayshore submarket, which Broadreach Capital Partners recently completed.
Broadreach and partner Rockwood Capital recently broke ground on Ameswell Mountain View, a $250 million mixed-use development comprising a 220,000-square-foot class-A office building and 255-room hotel. Ameswell Mountain View is the culmination of four years of planning and land assemblage by Broadreach.
“Communities like Mountain View, Palo Alto and Menlo Park are increasingly concerned with the impact of new development on things like traffic and as a result, approvals for new projects are much harder to come by,” Craig Vought, managing director of Broadreach Capital Partners, tells GlobeSt.com. “Some towns like Palo Alto have enacted area-wide limitations on the amount of new commercial development. Others like Mountain View have restricted new office construction in certain districts until traffic conditions improve. The cost to building a new office project on the Peninsula has increased substantially in the last five years. Contractors are as busy as they have ever been, material costs have gone up, city fees have gone up and land is basically unavailable unless you tear down an existing structure.”
Located at the gateway to downtown Mountain View at the convergence of US 101 and State Route 85, approximately one-third of the 10-acre Ameswell development site is devoted to open space with trails and recreational areas.
“Ameswell is characterized by its outstanding location and access,” said John Foster, Broadreach managing director. “It is less than a mile from Castro Street and the Baby Bullet Caltrain station, and offers immediate access to US 101, Highway 85 and the Stevens Creek Trail. Surrounded by the five largest companies in the world by market capitalization, Ameswell is arguably one of the most desirable locations in Silicon Valley.”
Anchoring the site is a five-story LEED Platinum office building with glass curtain wall. The building features 47,000-square-foot floor plates, ceiling heights up to 16 feet and full-height windows for views of the Bay, East Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains.
Building amenities include a large roof deck, terraces and breakout areas. Parking is all structured with three parking stalls per 1,000 square feet of office space.
Broadreach has engaged Terry Haught and Mark Daschbach of Newmark Cornish & Carey in Palo Alto as exclusive leasing agents for the office building, which is expected to be completed in November 2019.
The Ameswell Hotel is set to open in July 2020. The independent hotelier will feature a local design with a strong emphasis on art and technology. The hotel will include more than 6,000 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center, restaurant with outdoor dining, beer garden, pool and lounge area with cabanas, fire pits and an event lawn.
The hotel’s programming will be led by Broadreach managing director, Philip “Flip” Maritz, who developed and operated the luxury Rosewood Sand Hill hotel in Menlo Park as then-chairman of Rosewood Hotels.
“Much of the same team behind the Rosewood Sand Hill has been assembled to craft The Ameswell Hotel as a more sophisticated alternative to what exists in Silicon Valley,” said Maritz. “Not only do we want the hotel to serve both leisure and business travelers, The Ameswell Hotel will be an after-work destination for those who live and work in Mountain View and the greater community.”
The development team includes WRNS Studio, architect; RYS Architects, architect; BAMO, interior designer; SWA Group, landscape architect; Vance Brown Inc., general contractor and Johnstone Moyer Inc., general contractor.