Old Mountain View Development Update

Classics Chooses Names of New Streets for Station 361 Development, Fortes Redevelopment Plan to be Unvieled at March 6 OMVNA Meeting

by Robert Cox

Classic Communities Vice President Scott Ward has announced the names of the new private streets for the Classics at Station 361 development at the corner of West Evelyn and Calderon Avenues. The streets will be named Abate Street, Francesca Court, Geary Way, and Pine Way. I spoke to Mr. Ward at his Palo Alto ofice to get the details and an update on his company’s redevelopment of properties in our neighborhood.

Interview with Scott Ward

Mr. Cox: In the Old Mountain View neighborhood, which has very little open space that can be developed, the naming of new streets is a rare event. Some of our residents suggested a street naming contest, others wanted the streets named after popular council members like Jac Siegel and Laura Macias. Many hoped Classic Communities would continue their tradition of using the history of the neighborhood to guide the choice of names. Why did you choose these specific names?

Mr. Ward: The name Abate Street preserves the memory of the Abate family, former owners of the Station 361 property. The name Francesca Court recalls Francesca Castro, wife of Crisanto Castro, and Villa Francesca  in Mountain View. The names Geary and Pine Way echo the names of two popular streets in historic downtown San Francisco.

In general, we tend to prefer historic names to contemporary names. For instance, we’ve managed over the years to resist the temptation to name streets after our children, which is fairly common among developers. We also intend to choose a historic name for the new street to be developed on the Fortes property at 365 Villa Street.

Mr. Cox: As I walked by the Station 361 development last weekend, I noticed that the streets themselves had already been laid out and the frames for the townhomes on Evelyn and those for many of the single family homes on the inner streets are already in place. Are you still planning to havemodel homes ready for viewing in August or September.

Mr. Ward: Due to the surprisingly good weather, we’re actually ahead of schedule. At the current pace, we would be able to have some homes ready for viewing as early as June.

Mr. Cox: There’s been a lot of curiosity about the schedule for development of the Fortes property. Can you share some details of the redevelopment plan with us?

Mr. Ward: We’ve agreed with OMVNA board members to present our plans for the Fortes property at a special meeting at the Chamber of Commerce building, on Tuesday, March 6, from 7:00 – 9:00 PM (located at 580 Castro Street.) Named Classics of Old Town II, the plan features small lot single-family homes, similar to the original Old Town development on Houghton Street and Palmita Place. After that meeting, we’ll have the first public Development Review Committee meeting in late March. We expect our application to reviewed by City Council around May.

Mr. Cox: Thanks for sharing your plans with us. We look forward to seeing many of our neighbors at this special OMVNA meeting.

This entry was posted in City Politics, Development Projects. Bookmark the permalink.