Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Economic Development Retail topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Palo Alto committee names business liaisons, reviews retail vacancy data and permitting reform timeline
Summary
The Retail Vibrancy Committee designated liaisons to local business stakeholder groups, reviewed CoStar vacancy data showing differing vacancy rates on University and California avenues, and heard that Planning Director Jonathan Leighton will prepare a summary of recent permitting reforms for the committee’s next meeting.
The Palo Alto Retail Vibrancy Committee on April 16 designated committee liaisons to local business stakeholder groups, heard staff analysis of retail vacancy rates on University and California avenues and discussed steps to improve permitting transparency and market data collection.
Kylene, an assistant city manager, told the committee that staff will include the designated liaisons on stakeholder meeting invitations so “they can attend, represent, and, report back.” Chair Rechtel and committee members agreed to a tentative division of liaison responsibilities among the three committee members and asked staff to report the designations to the full City Council for awareness.
The committee reviewed CoStar-derived vacancy figures for two retail corridors. Staff reported University Avenue vacancy at about 12–12.5% in first quarter 2025, with roughly 97,000 square feet of retail listed as available. California Avenue’s vacancy was reported at about 5.3% in Q1 2025, with approximately 6,000 square feet available. Staff emphasized those figures follow CoStar’s definition, which counts spaces listed for lease or sale as vacant in the dataset provided to the city.
The vacancy figures were discussed alongside the city’s 12 retail-priority objectives for 2025; staff highlighted several active items that will return for committee and Council review, including California Avenue outdoor activation guidelines, Ramona Avenue standards and interim streetscape improvements. Staff said outreach to merchants, downtown businesses and hoteliers is being scheduled for late April and May, and that committee liaisons will be invited to those sessions.
Several committee members asked for more granular market data—asking rents, actual rents paid, vacancy lists and area-specific hotel performance measures such as occupancy and average daily rate. One committee member proposed contracting a local brokerage for recurring market reports to validate CoStar and surface asking versus achieved rents.
Jonathan Leighton, director for Planning and Development Services, told the committee he will assemble a summary of permitting reforms and department actions since an internal audit and said a recently funded position will help produce that material. “I haven't quite had the resources available immediately to pull together that information,” Leighton said, adding he expects to provide at least a draft outline by the committee’s next meeting.
Public comment raised questions about the CoStar numbers and how the dataset defines vacancy. Steve L., a speaker during public comment, said, “The vacancy data that staff has reported is completely inconsistent with my twice a day experience downtown,” and requested the city share the full CoStar data and listings so stakeholders can reconcile differences between on-the-ground observations and the vendor feed.
Staff and committee members also discussed related data sources cited in the meeting: Transient Occupancy Tax receipts (used to monitor hotel revenue, typically reported to the city two months in arrears), parking-count technology expected with a new parking guidance system, and transit ridership metrics from Caltrain and local transit operators.
On scheduling, staff proposed and the committee tentatively agreed to meet in May to review the California Avenue outdoor activation guidelines (targeting May 21) and to hold stakeholder outreach meetings including a downtown stakeholder meeting the week of May 1 and a California Avenue merchants meeting around April 30. The committee directed staff to include the new liaisons on those invites and either note the designations in the committee report to Council or announce them during Council member reports.
The meeting ended with staff commitments to (1) share more-detailed vacancy and market data or explain dataset limitations, (2) explore a small contract with a local broker for regular market reports if the committee desires, and (3) provide a permitting-reform summary for a future meeting.
