528 High Street - Parking Passageway with Potential - [Downtown South] 1991
Just think of what you could do with all this space! Bonuses: Arty covered bike rack and more low concrete seats.
I call this POPOS The Parking Passageway. However, I believe it may have been named after woman who pioneered schools (or the first school) in Palo Alto by the Palo Alto Historical Association (PAHA). PAHA’s Steve Steiger indicated that they were called upon to name - or approve the name - of any new park. While this is not a public park, per se, he was apparently asked to name this POPOS, not realizing it was a POPOS. I will do more research on that. There is potential to name these spaces in interesting ways.
This sign is much smaller than it looks here. It’s as if they want to have posted the sign but they wanted to be subtle about it for some reason. Design? It’s an architects’s office. Mainly, it is confusing.
This is an oddly shaped POPOS, long and skinny, like a cut-through from Alma to High Street, alongside the Public Parking Garage. It looks like it is shaped like a Y but the branch of the V of the Y to the north is actually “private” and is labeled so in very small type in various spots. Go have a look and see if you can find those signs.
This is the long, skinny public passageway between High and Alma Streets.
HOURS: 24x7
WHAT’S THERE: On the High Street end of the passageway, there are covered bike racks that look like umbrellas or toadstools with some concrete stools next to some unremarkable planting areas. There are several trees with strings of lights and an area that widens where there is a bit of sun and space for something to happen. The narrow, canyon-like passageway toward the Alma Street end is quite uninviting but does provide a way through wiithout having to go to Hamilton or University Avenues. Here is the Ordinance.
WHAT’S AROUND: This POPOS is mostly surrounded by restaurants and other street level parking lots. On Alma, there is some retail, including the Patagonia store. The commercial office space that occupies the building adjacent to the “private” passageway (the north branch of the “Y”) has been owned and occupied by Joseph Bellomo Architects and includes some residential units, including four penthouse units that have historically been configured as one residential unit.
WHAT YOU CAN DO THERE: Well, you can park your bike, sit on the concrete stools, walk through on your way from the parking garage, High or Alma Streets. You could probably play music, have a dance party, bring your own seating and read a book or have lunch or coffee. Right now, it is not set up for lingering, but it has its charms. The narrow passageway could be a temporary art gallery, I suppose.
WHAT I HAVE DONE HERE: I have had a recorded conversation with a former Mayor and City Council Member who voted to approve this as a Public Benefit. I have opened The Compliment Dept., and sat on the stools and people watched. I have also used it as a passageway and imagined how this space could be used. Dance party under those string lights keeps popping back into my head, partly because it is a commercial area (except for the Penthouse which is pretty far from ear shot) so some evening music would not likely disturb anyone, and indeed might bring some life. There are some unhoused neighbors who have taken to sleeping in the covered eating area of Sweet Maple across the street, a reminder of unmet housing needs right here.
You cannot smoke within 25 feet, or skateboard or rollerblade (big at the time).
WHAT YOU CAN’T DO THERE: The only signs I have seen include no smoking, no skateboarding, no rollerblading, and the “private property” indicators for one side of the “Y.” The only mention of activities in the ordinance include “pedestrian circulation” and the presence of bathrooms. There are no bathrooms located there as yet.