I am just about 25% into this fast (8 divided by 33 = 24.2%) and things are going well. Not sure how the Litecoin Summit turned out but I hope that Gemini announced that they would be offering to buy and sell Litecoin on their exchange. I guess I will find out after this fast ends on 10/13.
Well let's get down to business and talk a bit about the City of Palo Alto.
The City of Palo Alto, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, is 15 miles to the north of San Jose and 30 miles south of San Francisco. The city sits at the northern edge of Santa Clara County, forming the border with San Mateo County at San Francisquito Creek. The Palo Alto city limits stretch from the shoreline along southern San Francisco Bay into the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The city borders are formed by East Palo Alto and San Francisco Bay to the north, Mountain View to the east, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills to the south, and Menlo Park to the west.
Palo Alto is a very small city, encompassing about 23.7 square miles of land. The city has a population of about 66,642 residents. Palo Alto is essentially built-out and has little vacant land available for development. The high-technology industry has long been the leading emerging job generator in the local market. Major high-technology and medical companies headquartered in Palo Alto include Agilent Technologies, Genencor, Hewlett Packard, IDEO, Varian, VMware, and Xerox PARC. Other large technology companies with a presence in Palo Alto include Alza, Google, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Loral Space and Communications, SAP, and Yahoo. The technology, software, and medical companies tend to require high skill levels and pay commensurately high salaries.
The presence of Stanford University also provides a critical impetus for the local market. Stanford is widely recognized as one of the nation's leading research and teaching universities. The university owns over 8,000 acres of land. Its main campus is bound by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard and Sand Hill Road. The university also owns Stanford Research Park, a 655-acre area developed with about 10 million square feet of office and R&D space spread among 162 buildings.
Other catalysts for the local market include health care, venture capital firms, investment bankers, and intellectual property lawyers. The Stanford University Medical Center includes a school of medicine, a main hospital and children's hospital, a medical library, and medical research facilities. The two Stanford hospitals together have about 6,500 employees. Palo Alto Medical Foundation is a non-profit health care organization headquartered on El Camino Real just outside of the downtown district. The foundation has about 3,400 employees. Menlo Park is the focal point of California's venture capital industry, centered on Sand Hill Road by the Stanford campus. Downtown Palo Alto also has a confluence of venture capital firms. The presence of numerous high-technology firms has fostered increased demand for intellectual property law specialists, resulting in several large law firms locating in Palo Alto.
The downtown commercial district comprises the area bound roughly by Lytton Avenue to the northwest, Middlefield Road to the northwest, Forest Avenue to the southeast, and Alma Street to the southwest. The downtown commercial district is focused around University Avenue, which commences at Alma Street and extends through the district. The prime retail location within Palo Alto consists of the blocks of University Avenue situated between High and Cowper streets (i.e., from 151 through 499 University Avenue). Those blocks form one of the premier retail locations on the San Francisco Peninsula. Lesser demand exists for retail spaces on the associated side streets, the 100-150 block of University Avenue, and the 500 block of University Avenue, where pedestrian traffic dissipates significantly relative to the prime blocks.
Of the side streets, Emerson Street has the most retail activity. The street benefits from the presence of the Aquarius movie theater on the 400 block, which enhances pedestrian activity on the northwesterly section of the street in the downtown district. Additionally, the 700 block of the street has a busy Whole Foods Market, which attracts substantial pedestrian traffic to the southeasterly end of the district. Other side streets with significant retail activity include Ramona, Bryant, and Waverley, as well as the streets running parallel to University on either side (Hamilton and Lytton). Other side streets in the district also have some retail activity, but to a much lesser extent.
Typically, properties situated near the downtown core and the Caltrain right-of-way running parallel to Alma Street are developed with low- to moderate-intensity commercial uses. Retail and restaurant uses tend to congregate along University Avenue and the first to second blocks of the associated side streets off of the 100 to 400 blocks of University. Numerous national retailers are located along University Avenue. Interspersed within the core of the district are retail buildings, a few hotels, and a few mixed-use properties.
Downtown Palo Alto has a parking assessment district. As a result, downtown properties within the parking district can avoid some of the normal on-site parking requirements, but the parcels also usually have relatively large bond assessments imposed to pay for public parking lots and structures downtown.
University Avenue is a two-lane, bi-directional street with a 75-foot right-of-way. University Avenue carries moderately heavy auto traffic and benefits from high pedestrian traffic levels. University Avenue commences at Alma Street and runs through the downtown district before crossing over into the Crescent Park residential neighborhood northeast of Middlefield Road.
