Vallco Mall redevelopment talks to restart
CUPERTINO >> Vallco Shopping Mall ownership told the city last week it’s ready to restart planning for a transformation of the 58acre property.
Sand Hill Property Company submitted a letter to Cupertino city manager David Brandt on Wednesday asking to “restart the community planning process” on what to do with the mostly vacant mall. The letter, penned by company managing director Reed Moulds, comes nearly a year after the $3 billion green-roof-topped Hills at Vallco project was defeated by voters and two years since that project was formally submitted to city staff for review.
Sand Hill says it’s not ready to submit any projects to the city. Rather, it wants to suspend further review of The Hills and to work with the city on a specific plan that would provide more options to be reviewed by the city council in the future. The letter says the company is “now open to other possibilities.”
Sand Hill wants the city to consider the existing office-centric mixed-use vision in the General Plan and study a housing-centric use that would reduce non-residential space. A third option would study a middle ground between office and housing.
Sand Hill’s letter also requests that environmental review continue.
The mall is described in the letter as the city’s and West Valley’s “greatest opportunity to have a focused and meaningful positive impact on the housing and affordability crisis.”
In a discussion last week with this newspaper, Moulds said Sand Hill feels the time is right to re-engage with the city, pointing to a recently concluded speaker series hosted by the city that featured panel discussions on retail, housing, planning and transportation trends. He also said regional narratives and concerns have changed a bit since The Hills was pitched two years ago, specifically in regard to housing issues.
The letter states that “panelists confirmed to the community not only that the mall is, in fact, dead, but that the housing shortage is real and Cupertino, along with some other cities in the region, has not done and is not doing enough to address it.”
The letter adds that the “obvious takeaway” from the speaker series was that a “thoughtfully conceived mixed-use plan” at the mall can “provide solutions to these issues and provide for economic development and diversity” in the city.
Moulds said in the letter that fallout from the November election taught the company a few lessons. The Hills project in the form of Measure D went head to head with Measure C, a citizen initiative that sought to restrict the mall to just commercial use.
“Through Measure D we also learned, despite many significant benefits and a well-received design, that not everyone has become comfortable with 2 million square feet of office space. The failure of Measure C also taught us that doing nothing at all at Vallco, an irreparable blight and severe drain on city resources, was considered by most of the community to be unacceptable.”
In a statement released Wednesday, Mayor Savita Vaidhyanathan said, “I’m looking forward to finally resolving the issue of the Vallco redevelopment project. This could be a signature project for our city and it should be something our residents want to contribute their thoughts to and be proud of in the end. I want community engagement right from the get-go in a positive and productive manner that results in a creative solution that will benefit our whole community.”
The city said on its website it “expects to hold multiple public meetings and invite public input throughout the process.” Updates will be provided on the website.