(If you don't know what and where Alma Plaza is, start with the main page first.)

Dear Editors:

I naturally appreciated Marc Igler's "The Battle for Alma Plaza" in the June 2nd Palo Alto Weekly, which helpfully focused on the small businesses who may be driven out of existence if the current center were demolished. However, I wish that Igler had done his journalistic homework more completely before writing, toward the end of the article, that "everyone agrees Alma Plaza needs an overhaul."

I, for one, have been consistently saying the contrary -- on a specially created Web site (http://www.paloaltan.com), on the Weekly's ReaderWire (April 9), to the Palo Alto Daily News, and at the public meeting where American Stores' plans were most recently shown. The present Alma Plaza is a special and livable architectural resource of some historical importance. It is the right size for the community and for the businesses that would like to nestle within it.

Just like a 1956 automobile, this 1956 shopping center is not going to be to everyone's taste. But, again like a classic car -- such as the Studebakers that Lucky's architect Raymond Loewy also designed -- it can be a vehicle for those with true style, creativity (and ecological responsibility).

Alma Plaza's problems could be solved simply, not with a wrecking ball, but rather via management that:

1. puts up a proper sign so passing motorists know the center is there
2. actually tries to lease spaces to tenants, instead of blatantly running down the center by keeping units vacant for years
3. and actively runs a supermarket that is stocked and managed to appeal to local tastes

On the last of these three points, the Co-op, Piazza's, and Trader Joe's in Menlo Park (to mention just three) have shown how appealing food stores in older buildings can be when they have the community in mind. I am sure that any of these heads-up retailers could transform the more architecturally interesting Alma Plaza as well -- if only they were allowed to.

Now I recognize that I'm not "everyone." I might even be alone in wanting the current supermarket building at Alma Plaza preserved. But take a look at a few of the other constituencies involved:

• people concerned about the traffic a new development would bring
• other businesses worried about the competition
• the existing Alma Plaza merchants who want to keep doing business
• Barron Park residents who need a supermarket
• neighbors without cars who are scared they'll lose a place to shop
• and so on.

In the best "divide and conquer" tradition of corporate PR, American Stores has identified each of these, tried to assuage each subgroup's concerns, and then tried to set them against one another. If all were to unite, however, they could recognize that few -- except the people sticking pins on a map back in Salt Lake City -- actually want a bigger store and months of construction. No one really wants Palo Alto to change its zoning standards for a single merchant except American Stores, which nastily threatens that it will leave town, and never rent to anyone else, if it doesn't get its way.

I suggest that if American Stores is unwilling or unable to manage its property well, it could retain the ample Proposition 13 tax breaks it enjoys by leasing the supermarket and other units to more enterprising retailers. It certainly should not be rewarded with a zoning variance.

Yours,

Author: Jonathan Angel
www.angel.org
Sincere thanks to the Palo Alto Weekly for its great online "morgue" of old articles
This page last updated 6/8/99