Plans to construct a six-story housing development that would add hundreds of new apartments to a prominent intersection in downtown Mountain View are poised to move ahead with the City Council set to take a final vote on the project next month.

The developer Greystar wants to replace the Chase Bank at the corner of El Camino Real and Castro Street, as well as an adjacent surface parking lot and vacant restaurant, with 299 apartments and thousands of square feet of ground-floor retail space.

On Wednesday evening, the city’s Environmental Planning Commission unanimously signed off on the massive mixed-use development at 749 W. El Camino Real. The City Council is now expected to vote on the project at its Nov. 18 meeting.

Environmental Planning Commissioners expressed enthusiasm for the Greystar project this week, praising its potential to add a lot more housing along a major transit corridor as well as the developer’s responsiveness to community concerns, like preserving the iconic artwork and architectural style associated with the existing Chase Bank.

“There’s a willingness to work together as a team to get things done. It’s not just about profit motive, it’s about meeting the needs of the community,” Commissioner Jose Gutierrez said at the Oct. 15 meeting.

But a few commissioners also voiced concerns that Greystar missed out on an opportunity to elevate the development’s design and maximize its impact, especially with respect to its location at a key gateway to downtown Mountain View.

“Given this premium location, which I’m sure you’ll benefit from, you’re not making the most of the responsibility of what the building should be doing on that site,” Commissioner Joyce Yin said. “It’s not just a missed opportunity. I feel like it’s a role that isn’t being fulfilled.”

Greystar has proposed a mix of residential and commercial uses on a roughly three-acre site on the southeast corner of El Camino Real and Castro Street, with the bulk of the project dedicated to the nearly 300 apartments, including 33 below-market rate units. The development also includes close to 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, a public plaza and a new bank, as well as above-ground parking and a two-level underground garage, totalling 459 parking spots.

“I tried to make a list of things that I liked about this project, and I started running out of space on my paper,” Commissioner Hank Dempsey said.

But Greystar’s design for the new bank drew criticism from commissioners who voiced concern that the building “turned its back” on Castro Street and was not inviting to the public.

“The Chase building kind of looks cool, I admit that, but I’m not being invited anywhere and that kind of bums me out a little bit,” Dempsey said. “Kids coming home at three o’clock from Graham, they’re just going to walk past a big old wall all the way down to the corner.”

Commissioner Yin honed in on the public plaza fronting El Camino Real next to the bank as another missed opportunity. It would have worked better if it was accessible from Castro Street, in addition to El Camino Real, Yin said, emphasizing the plaza’s importance in relation to the other three corners of the intersection.

The development, shown from Castro Street, would include a new Chase Bank branch, which would feature the mosaic above the existing bank. Rendering courtesy of Mountain View.

“You have a public plaza that ignores its other team members, so to speak, of the gateway,” Yin said.

Yin also noted that the plaza would funnel straight into an above-ground PG&E transformer, constraining the full potential of the project’s design. According to the city, PG&E wouldn’t budge on relocating the transformer. Yin however wasn’t convinced that the developer and city couldn’t have negotiated more with the utility company. If the project’s vision was clearer from the beginning, accommodations could have been made, she said.

Instead, a lot of attention was focused on preserving the artwork and architectural style of the bank, which Yin said she appreciated and was an important community priority. But she added that if the developer had recognized the cultural and historical significance of the site from the start, more attention could have been directed to making the project an inviting gateway to the downtown area.

“If I put myself in the developer and the owner’s shoes, I would drool over the potential,” Yin said. “I think you guys did not understand the gem that you have on this site and did not take advantage of it fully.”

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.