Palo Alto Passes Improved Public Art Program

Coming Soon For Palo Alto - More Public Art

Palo Alto will be the recipient of more public art.  The City Council voted 8-0 last week to increase the “percent for art” policy which will now include residential projects of five units or more as well continuing to include commercial developments that are at least 10,000 sq. ft. and have minimum costs of $200,000.  The City Council also approved a proposal to create a public art master plan.

Under the policy developers will have to set aside 1 percent of the estimated construction costs for public art.  Developers will be given an option of hiring their own artist or just giving the city art fund the money.  The art commissioned by developers will have to be visible to the public for a minimum of 40 hours per week.

The City expects that the policy will generate about $2 million for public art projects over the next three years.

Why Public Art Matters

Why is this important to Palo Alto?  It is well known that Cities gain value through public art – cultural, social, and economic value.  Diverse public art is a distinguishing part of a public’s history and its evolving city culture.  Public art reflects and reveals our societal fabric, adds meaning to our cities and uniqueness to communities.  Public art humanizes the structural environment and makes public spaces come to life.  This art provides a looking glass between past, present and future.  Importantly, public art is freely accessible to all who come to a city.

U.S. cities, villages, towns, and communities desire to attract people to live in and visit their downtowns, their cultural centers, and their marketplaces.  Having a unique community identity, especially in terms of what our cities, villages, towns, and communities look like, is becoming even more important in a world where everyplace tends to looks like the same place just down the road.  Downtowns with strong and vibrant public art expressions break the trend of blandness and sameness, improve the eclectic feel of the culture, and give communities a stronger sense of identity.   Absent a strong public art program, we would be missing out on allowing our human identities to be revealed.

Palo Alto Early History

Discovery of Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto's earliest recorded history is from 1769, when Gaspar de Portolà discovered an Ohlone Indian settlement. A plaque is erected at Middlefield Road and Embarcadero Road to commemorate the remains an area of known Indian mounds. The city got its name from the tall landmark Redwood tree, El Palo Alto, which still grows on the east bank of San Francisquito Creek across from Menlo Park. One trunk of the twin-trunked tree can still be found by the railroad trestle near Alma Street in El Palo Alto Park (the other trunk was destroyed during a storm in the late 20th century). There a plaque recounts the story of the Portolà expedition, a 63-man, 200-horse expedition from San Diego to Monterey from November 7–11, 1769. The group overshot Monterey in the fog and when they reached modern-day Pacifica they discovered San Francisco Bay. Portolà descended from Sweeney Ridge southeast down San Andreas Creek to Laguna Creek (now Crystal Springs Reservoirs and the Filoli estate, and thence to the San Francisquito Creek watershed, ultimately camping at El Palo Alto from November 6–11, 1769. Thinking the bay was too wide to cross, the group retraced their journey back to Monterey, never discovering the Golden Gate entrance to the Bay.



Today

Palo Alto, north of Oregon Expressway, is filled with older homes, including Craftsman and California Colonials, some of which date back to the 1890s but most of which were built in the first four decades of the 20th century. South of Oregon Expressway, the homes, including many Eichler-style houses, were primarily built in the first 20 years after World War II. While the city contains homes, condominiums and townhomes that now cost anywhere from $800,000 to well in excess of $40 million, much of Palo Alto's housing stock is in the style of California mid-century middle-class suburbia. It has highly rated public schools (Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School), a very high quality of life, numerous parks and open space reserves, and a vibrant downtown area including University Avenue which leads to the entrance of Stanford University. The median home sale price for all of Palo Alto was more than $1.3 million in 2006 and $1,363,000 in July 2009. In 2010, Palo Alto ranked as the 2nd most expensive city in the United States, at $1.48 million. The primary drivers of housing market values in Palo Alto are the schools which test at some of the highest levels in the Bay Area, Stanford University, and its proximity to Silicon Valley and the multitude of high tech companies within a short drive.