Upfront
Local news, information and analysis
Massive ‘Gateway’ building OK’d for downtown Four-story mixed-use development to occupy former Shell station site by Gennady Sheyner owntown Palo Alto will soon have a prominent new “gateway” building next to the Caltrain station, though the glassy development won’t be as tall or ambitious as the one originally proposed. The City Council voted 7-2 early Tuesday morning, with Councilman
D
Greg Schmid and Councilwoman Karen Holman dissenting, to approve a zone change for Lytton Gateway, a four-story building at the corner of Lytton and Alma streets that would include offices on the top three stories and space for retail and a nonprofit group on the ground floor. The vote
followed months of negotiations between the applicants, Lytton Gateway LLC, and Palo Alto’s planning commission and council members. During that time, the project was scaled down from five stories to four and the developer was asked to scrap the plan to include 14 affordable-housing units in the project and to provide space for retail at below market rate. Once built, the project will transform a site that was once occupied by a Shell gas station and become
the most prominent example of the city’s recent push toward development that encourages people to use public transportation, a key tenet of New Urbanism. The building at 355 Alma St., would be 50 feet tall and would include a corner tower about 70 feet in height. The council agreed with the applicants’ assertion that the building’s location near a major transit hub justifies its large size and high density. “There are certain locations where
you do need mass to create anchors and scale for public spaces and for the community to use those spaces,” said Jim Baer, a developer who was a member of the application team along with Lund Smith, Boyd Smith and Scott Foster. Lund Smith called the project “progressive” and said it is “an example of what an urban development can provide.” (continued on page 11)
SCIENCE
Moon to eclipse sun on Sunday Professor warns against unprotected viewing
classmate devastated Benatar’s childhood friends as they completed their freshman studies and trickled back to Palo Alto for the summer. They flocked to the Benatar home as her parents, Lisa and Darrell, and sisters, Isabel and Maya, observed the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva, receiving friends at their house this past week. On Wednesday, the Benatars sat in their living room surrounded by countless bouquets, photographs, scrapbooks and other reminders of Emily, including many of her handicrafts. Lisa Benatar wore a simple necklace of a rounded piece of sea glass
by Bryce Druzin ndrew Fraknoi has some advice for what not to do during the solar eclipse on Sunday, May 20: Don’t look at the sun with unprotected eyes. “Normally, who’s stupid enough to stare at the sun?” said Fraknoi, who chairs the Astronomy Department at Foothill College. “Mom taught you that, pain taught you that ... but somehow during an eclipse, especially if it’s in the newspaper, people go crazy.” In the Bay Area, the eclipse will be visible in the northwest portion of the sky, with the moon beginning to move in front of the sun at 5:16 p.m. At its peak at 6:33 p.m., the moon will cover 84 percent of the sun. Fraknoi suggests people interested in seeing the eclipse go to a viewing site, such as the Foothill College Observatory, where viewing equipment with proper filters will be available. For people who wish to view the eclipse on their own, Fraknoi recommends cutting a pinhole in a piece of cardboard or thick paper and allowing the sun to shine through the hole onto another piece of paper. The projected image will be safe to view. “It will be as if the sun is covered up more and more by a black disc,” Fraknoi said. “In the old days people thought a monster was eating the sun.” Sunglasses, exposed film and smoked glass do not provide sufficient protection for direct viewing. No. 14 arc-welder’s glass is a suitable filter but not the lower numbered glass. Viewers in other parts of the western United States, including Redding and Chico, will see what
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A
Veronica Weber
Getting a charge out of it Visitors to Stanford Shopping Center will be able to charge more than store purchases, now that a DC fast-charging station for electric vehicles is available in the Quarry Road parking garage. The station, the first one available for public use in California, will charge a Nissan Leaf to 80 percent in a half hour. Pictured here is Mike Thompson, right, an electric-vehicle consultant, inserting the power plug into a Leaf while talking with Paul Smith, left, chief electric-vehicle officer for Sustainable Unlimited Mobility and Project Green On Ramp, and Kim Kinoshita, a Leaf owner, on Tuesday, May 15.
COMMUNITY
Classmates stunned by loss of vivacious Paly graduate Friends recall Emily Benatar as exuberant, creative, with wide social circle by Chris Kenrick
H
undreds will gather Saturday to remember the life of Emily Benatar, a vivacious 2011 Palo Alto High School graduate who died May 9 in St. Louis, where she had been a first-year student at Washington University.
Benatar’s friends at colleges across the country were in the midst of final exams when they learned their cheerful and accomplished childhood friend had lost her battle against meningococcal disease after three weeks in the hospital.
“Emily dying is not just a personal loss or a communal loss,” said her friend Anna von Clemm. “It is a loss to society. I know in the deepest part of me that Emily was going to do something not just great but incredible with her life.” Though Benatar had been vaccinated against meningitis, she contracted a strain not covered by the vaccine. Initially lacking the classic symptom of a headache, she was twice sent home by doctors before a severe headache led to a diagnosis. After an initial coma, she rallied, leading to hopes she would recover. But a subsequent swelling of the brain caused her death, her parents said. The loss of their charismatic
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