PALO ALTO — For nearly two decades, elected leaders have passed on renovating the vacant and dilapidated Roth Building, a piece of Palo Alto’s past that historical preservationists have pushed for years to become the new home for a city museum.
The birthplace of Silicon Valley giants like HP, Facebook and Google, Palo Alto has a long history that councils in the past have sought to showcase in a dedicated space. An agreement struck in 2007 calls for a complete overhaul of the Roth Building at 300 Homer Avenue, complete with a new cafe, community rooms, storage space for the city’s archives and a new home for the non-profit Palo Alto History Museum, which intends to operate the space.
But until now no city council has been willing to foot any of the bill for the project, instead asking the museum to fundraise.
Not wanting to keep the museum waiting for years longer, the Palo Alto City Council decided Monday to give $4 million of the estimated $10.5 million price tag to rehabilitate the building, preserving an important part of Palo Alto history. The council also committed to a partnership with the museum that ensures the “mutual long-term success of the project.”
Rich Green, president of the museum, had been urging the council for months to move ahead with plans to use community impact fees on the museum project.
“The Roth Building provides an exceptional opportunity that will otherwise continue to deteriorate,” Green said. “Recognizing there is an urgency in reversing the Roth Building, the museum’s contractor has already reached out to its subcontractors. The sooner the museum can start work, the longer it can take advantage of favorable market conditions. Time is of the essence.”
The council’s decision comes in stark contrast to the much more skeptical view popular under former former Mayor Adrian Fine, who opposed using city funds for the project.
“The amount of work that has been done to get us to this point shows the importance of this building,” council member Greer Stone said Tuesday. “The Roth Building is a city property and a historic one at that. It is our duty to not only rehab it and preserve it, but also note what a unique opportunity and location for the Palo Alto museum to be able to be placed here.”
For Stone it has long been “a shame” that the council has numerous times committed to historical preservation but “when it actually comes down to taking action, we had to back off.” After years of frustration, Stone joined council member Lydia Kou and Vice Mayor Pat Burt this year in introducing a plan to “quickly preserve this vulnerable historic building, take advantage of the existing permit, and move forward this construction season to avoid winter rains.”
On June 7 during a budget discussion, the council voted 4-3 to support a funding plan that includes $2 million in impact fees from the Stanford University Medical Center development, and $2 million in other funds.
Burt urged the council to move forward with the plan, which would allow the museum to break ground quickly.
“The museum is looking to proceed as rapidly as possible on beginning the rehab of the outer building, and it would be our hope that we can get this lease option as expeditiously as possible,” Burt said. “This isn’t going to be just a museum facility for the city, it’s also going to have extensive community space and a whole range of functions.”
But though the slow-growth majority enthusiastically voted to move the rehab project along, some council members weren’t so keen to spend city money on the museum. Council members Cormack, Eric Filseth and Greg Tanaka dissented in a vote to commit the city to the project’s long-term success.
“I’m nervous about what the mutual long-term success for the project means” for the city,” Cormack said. “We have seen a wide variety of set-ups with various nonprofits and I’m concerned about the ongoing operations cost.”
Councilman Greg Tanaka said the council shouldn’t move forward with allocating money for the museum as the city faces tough budget negotiations.
“I don’t know if it’s the most critical thing we should think about,” Tanaka said. “Do we need to do it when we’re in the second year of a budget crisis?”
