Downtown Parking · On the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot
Primary-source research

Fast Facts: Comparing three RFP responses.

Alliant Communities, Related California/Alta Housing, and Presidio Bay Ventures each responded to the City's Downtown Parking Plazas Request for Proposals (RFP). The City has not published a ranking or a comparative evaluation of the three. This page does that work directly: it checks each proposal against the RFP's own stated priorities and calls out, by name, where a proposal falls short — not just what each says about itself.

AI disclosure. This page's compliance analysis, tables, and synthesis were substantially AI-drafted from the primary sources cited throughout, then reviewed and edited by the site operator before publication. See the site's standing AI use disclosure for how that process works generally.
Methodology. Figures below were drawn from Menlo Park's Request for Proposals and the December 15, 2025 responses that three developers filed with the City. The City also posted these materials at menlopark.gov.[1–4] Where a figure originates from a public statement by a councilmember rather than a developer's own filing, that is stated explicitly. The assessments below represent this site's opinion, gained by applying the RFP's stated priorities to each developer's own numbers — not the City's evaluation. Because the Council recast the RFP's requirements as priorities, falling short of one is not a disqualification; it is a gap between what the City said it wanted and what it was offered. As of this writing, the City has not published a staff recommendation or comparative ranking of the three RFP responses.

The City's stated priorities — and why they are not requirements

The RFP separates Project Priorities (Section 3.1, labeled A–D) — the City's four core terms — from Development Objectives (Section 3.2, labeled A–M), which the City “encourages.”[1] Neither set is a floor a bid must clear. The draft in the Council's advance packet carried the Section 3.1 terms under the heading “Minimum Project Requirements”; at the August 26, 2025 meeting Principal Planner Tom Smith recommended recasting them as “project priorities,” explaining that the 345 affordable units, the 556 parking spaces, and design compliance would then be “city priorities for the project” but “would not automatically disqualify a developer” unable to provide them. The Council authorized release on that basis. See The housing-element question. So the scorecard below is not a compliance test, because there is nothing to comply with. It measures each proposal against the four things the City said it wanted, and shows how far short the bids fall — without any of them being disqualified for it.

Downtown Parking Plazas RFP — issued Sept. 15, 2025
Minimum units345 units affordable to households at 15%–80% of area median income (AMI)
Income targetingAt least 40% of units ≤60% AMI; half of those (≥20% of total) ≤50% AMI, per Gov. Code §37364
Housing share of siteAt least 80% of the property developed with housing
Replacement parkingAt least 556 spaces (1:1 replacement), built and financed by the developer without City financial contribution
City subsidyCity's contribution is the land itself; additional subsidy "should not be presumed"
Land disposition55-year ground lease, $1.00/year base rent plus insurance/operational costs; City retains land ownership. City reserves the right to instead sell the site(s)
PhasingDevelopers may propose phased construction; not required
Timeline goalHousing Element target: complete by 2027; construct the 345 units within the current cycle, which ends January 2031

Scorecard: the four Project Priorities

This is the check the City hasn't published. The RFP's Section 3.1 sets out four priorities. Here is each proposal measured against each one, using the developer's own filed numbers. “Falls short” means the proposal does not deliver what the City asked for — not that the City was obliged to reject it.[1–4]

Project Priorities A–D (RFP §3.1) — what the City asked for, not a disqualifying floor
PriorityAlliant CommunitiesRelated California / Alta HousingPresidio Bay Ventures
A. ≥345 units at 15–80% AMI Meets 345 units, 100% affordable within the band Meets 346 affordable units within the band Fails Workforce housing at 80–120% AMI sits entirely outside the required 15–80% band; the developer says so itself
B. ≥80% of site as housing; ≥40% of units ≤60% AMI, half of those ≤50% AMI Meets 100% affordable; 57% ≤60% AMI, 55% ≤50% AMI — clears the floor with room to spare Unclear Affordable-component AMI mix clears the threshold on its own, but a standalone parking structure occupies a large share of Plaza 3's footprint; the filing does not address the 80%-housing-share test directly Fails Since no units fall within 15–80% AMI, none can count toward the ≤60%/≤50% AMI shares this priority calls for
C. ≥556 spaces, developer-financed, no City money Partial Delivers the unit count, but requests a City loan of impact fees (repaid with interest) — a City-provided financing mechanism, even if not a grant Fails States outright it has no fully privately funded parking proposal; asks the City to be bond issuer for the $63.0M garage Fails Asks for a direct $15M contribution (or tax-increment financing), plus fee and tax waivers, calling City support "essential" to feasibility
D. Design consistent with City standards Meets No stated deviation from design/development standards Meets No stated deviation from design/development standards Partial Explicitly conditions the proposal on a City waiver of setback requirements and a reduction in residential parking minimums below code

Reading the scorecard: Alliant is the only proposal that meets three of the four priorities outright, with a repayable financing ask on the fourth. Related/Alta meets the unit-count priority but fails the parking-financing priority by its own admission and appears to leave the housing-share priority unaddressed. Presidio Bay fails three of the four priorities — income targeting, income distribution, and developer-financed parking — and conditions the fourth on standards relief. The developers seemingly concede these points because the assessments made here quote or closely paraphrase the language the developer put in its own filing.

Side-by-side comparison table

The figures below add detail beyond the four priorities — cost, lease term, and schedule — for readers who want the fuller picture.

Figures as filed by each developer, Dec. 15, 2025
 Alliant CommunitiesRelated California / Alta HousingPresidio Bay Ventures
Total units345500 (346 affordable + 154 market-rate)347
Income mix100% affordable, avg. 55% AMI (57% ≤60% AMI; 55% ≤50% AMI)Affordable component avg. 47% AMI (30–60% AMI); separate market-rate component uncappedWorkforce housing, 80–120% AMI — above the RFP's 15–80% AMI band
Replacement parking556 spaces (738 total incl. residential)556–574 public stalls (standalone garage, Plaza 3) + 827 total incl. residential556 public stalls (1:1) of 814 total stalls
Building heightsNot specified in submission — left flexible to incorporate community feedback[6]Tallest building 9 stories; also 7- and 8-story buildings on Maloney St. and a 7-story building on Oak Grove Ave.[6]Three 5-story buildings[6]
Total project costNot stated as a single total in the response≈$493.6M ($296.5M affordable + $63.0M garage + $134.1M market-rate)≈$273.8M
City subsidy sought$0 stated; requests a repayable impact-fee loan (repaid with interest)No fixed dollar figure filed; asks City to bond-finance the $63.0M garage. Councilmember Drew Combs estimated the resulting city cost at ≈$26–27M at the June 2, 2026 study session[5]$15M direct contribution to the garage (≈$45,000/unit), or a tax-increment (EIFD) financing structure as an alternative; plus fee waivers and a construction-period property tax waiver
Ground lease term proposedNot specified as different from RFP; describes "long-term ground lease... consistent with the RFP"Describes its standard practice as "55-year regulatory agreements or 99-year ground lease agreements" generally, without committing to one for this project99-year ground lease — longer than the RFP's 55-year baseline
Construction duration / completionConstruction Q4 2028–Q1 2031; lease-up continues to Q3 2032Multi-phase construction 2029–2032+ per quarterly schedule; full build-out extends past the Jan. 2031 Housing Element deadline40 months total construction, phased; entitlements begin only after the Nov. 2026 vote

Dashes or ranges above reflect what each developer filed; where a developer did not state a figure, that is noted rather than estimated.

Full proposal profiles, one at a time

The two tables above put all three proposals in one view for quick comparison. What follows is the opposite by design: each proposal's complete record — where it satisfies the RFP, where it falls short, what it relies on financially, and its phased construction timeline — laid out in full rather than trimmed to fit a shared column width.

Proposal 01

Alliant Communities

345Units, 100% affordable
556+Replacement parking
$0City subsidy requested
55-yrGround lease (RFP default)

Where it satisfies the RFP

  • Meets Delivers the full 345-unit minimum, 100% affordable — deeper affordability than the RFP asks for (avg. 55% AMI vs. the 15–80% AMI band allowed).[2]
  • Meets Income mix clears Gov. Code §37364: 57% of units ≤60% AMI, 55% ≤50% AMI, against a 40%/half-of-that floor.[2]
  • Meets Commits to 556 replacement spaces plus separate resident parking, financed by the developer.[2]
  • Meets Takes the RFP's default subsidy position: no additional subsidy presumed, funded through the land contribution and standard affordable-housing capital stack (AHSC, 4%/9% LIHTC, state tax credits, and county and city soft debt).[2]

Where it falls short or is unclear

  • Partial Its own schedule shows construction finishing Q1 2031 and lease-up continuing to Q3 2032 — construction completion lands right at the edge of the Housing Element cycle deadline (Jan. 2031), and full occupancy runs well past it.[2]
  • Partial Does request two separate financial accommodations beyond pure land contribution: a loan of the impact fees, repayable with interest, and a second loan covering the upfront fair market lease value (a residual receipts note). Neither is a subsidy in the grant sense, but both are City-provided financing mechanisms.[2]
  • No single total development cost figure is stated in the narrative response (a detailed pro forma was filed separately and is not fully reproduced in the public posting).[2]

Subsidies and lease terms it relies on

  • Land contribution via the RFP's standard 55-year, $1/year ground lease — no deviation proposed.
  • Requests a City loan of impact fees, to be repaid with interest — a deferral, not a grant.
  • Financing stack: AHSC, federal 4%/9% LIHTC, state tax credits, County of San Mateo and City of Menlo Park soft debt — the same capital stack used on Alliant's nearby Sheridan Apartments project.[2]

Phased construction timeline

  • Phase 1 — Preliminary development (Q1–Q3 2026): design meetings, community engagement, negotiating lease/sale terms.
  • Phase 2 — Entitlements (Q1 2026–Q1 2027): environmental compliance, continued design, final entitlement approvals.
  • Phase 3 — Financing and drawings (Q2 2027–Q1 2029): funding applications (County NOFAs, AHSC, tax-credit rounds), construction-level design approvals.
  • Phase 4 — Construction (Q4 2028–Q1 2031): staggered start/completion across sites to maximize available downtown parking during the build.
  • Phase 5 — Leasing (Q3 2028–Q3 2032): pre-leasing begins before construction ends; full lease-up projected through Q3 2032.
Proposal 02

Related California / Alta Housing

500Total units (346 affordable)
556–574Public parking stalls
≈$63.0MGarage cost, city-bond financed
104Dwelling units / acre

Where it satisfies the RFP

  • Meets 346 affordable units clears the 345-unit floor; the affordable component's income mix (30–60% AMI, avg. 47%) comfortably clears the Gov. Code §37364 threshold on its own, without counting the market-rate units at all.[3]
  • Meets Commits to full 1:1 replacement parking (556 minimum, up to 574) concentrated in a standalone garage on Plaza 3, which the RFP's development objectives explicitly favor as a parking-management strategy.[1,3]
  • Meets Proposes using market-rate housing on Plaza 1 (154 units) to generate $5M–$10M in land-sale proceeds that help fund the parking garage — an innovative-partnership approach the RFP's development objectives specifically encourage.[1,3]

Where it falls short or is unclear

  • Falls short States explicitly: "At this time Related and Alta do not have a fully privately funded parking garage proposal." The RFP's priorities call for replacement parking financed by the developer without City financial contribution; this proposal instead asks the City to serve as bond issuer for the $63.0M garage.[3]
  • Falls short No developer-stated dollar figure for the City's net financial exposure appears in the filing itself. Councilmember Drew Combs characterized the resulting city cost as roughly $26–27M from the dais at the June 2, 2026 study session — that figure is Combs's public estimate, not a number Related/Alta put in writing.[5]
  • Partial The proposal's own "long-term maintenance approach" section describes the firm's standard practice as operating under "55-year regulatory agreements or 99-year ground lease agreements" in general — it does not commit to the RFP's specific 55-year term for this project one way or the other.[3]
  • Partial Whether the ≥80%-of-property-as-housing threshold is met is not clearly demonstrable from the site plan as filed, given the standalone garage's footprint on Plaza 3.[3]
  • Falls short The quarterly budget schedule shows construction and lease-up activity continuing into 2032–2033, past the Housing Element cycle's January 2031 deadline.[3]

Subsidies and lease terms it relies on

  • City-issued, revenue-backed bond to finance the $63.0M parking garage, leveraging the City's AAA credit rating to lower borrowing costs.
  • Market-rate land proceeds (Plaza 1), estimated at $5M–$10M, applied toward garage costs.
  • Infill Infrastructure Grant (IIG) funds, up to $50,000/stall, contingent on the state program becoming available in a future budget year.
  • AHSC funds, 4% LIHTC and tax-exempt bonds, and County of San Mateo affordable-housing-fund sources for the affordable component.
  • No committed lease-term deviation from the RFP's 55-year default; company materials reference both 55-year and 99-year structures as standard practice elsewhere in its portfolio.

Phased construction timeline

  • 2026: Pre-application, preliminary design meetings, community outreach begins; entitlement design and lease/sale agreement negotiated.
  • 2027–2028: Entitlement application and staff review; IIG and AHSC funding applications submitted; TCAC/CDLAC tax-credit rounds pursued.
  • 2029–2030: Parking structure (Plaza 3) construction, concurrent with Residential (Plaza 3) construction start.
  • 2030–2031: Residential (Plaza 1a) construction; Residential Phase 2 begins.
  • 2031–2032+: Market-rate residential construction on Plaza 1 follows, financed in part by the phased approach; full build-out extends into 2032–2033 per the filed quarterly schedule.
Proposal 03

Presidio Bay Ventures

347Units, workforce housing
80–120%AMI targeted
$15MCity contribution sought
99-yrGround lease proposed

Where it satisfies the RFP

  • Meets Delivers 347 units, above the 345-unit floor, and commits to full 1:1 replacement parking (556 public stalls of 814 total).[4]
  • Meets Adds two new public parks totaling nearly 0.5 acres, exceeding the RFP's open-space encouragement for Plazas 2 and 3.[1,4]
  • Meets Proposes the fastest construction window of the three (40 months total, max 16 months per lot under construction) and phases the garage first, addressing the RFP's construction-impact-management priority directly.[1,4]

Where it falls short or is unclear

  • Falls short The developer states this outright: "our proposal does not deliver the very low income housing requested in the RFP." The RFP's priorities call for units affordable at 15%–80% AMI; Presidio Bay's workforce housing is priced at 80%–120% AMI — a materially higher income band that does not satisfy the RFP's core affordability requirement or Gov. Code §37364's ≤60%/≤50% AMI thresholds.[1,4]
  • Falls short Requests a direct $15M City contribution to the garage (≈$45,000/unit) — the RFP's baseline assumption is that replacement parking is financed by the developer with no City money. Presidio Bay offers an alternative (an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District/tax-increment mechanism) but that, too, relies on City-directed public financing rather than private capital.[4]
  • Falls short Also asks the City to waive all impact, planning, and permitting fees, and to waive property taxes during construction (by delaying site conveyance) — additional forms of public subsidy beyond the direct $15M ask.[4]
  • Falls short Proposes a 99-year ground lease rather than the RFP's 55-year default — a significantly longer term, though the City would gain outright ownership of the buildings at lease expiration.[1,4]
  • Partial Offers an alternate structure in which Presidio Bay retains ownership of the garage and operates it as paid public parking, which it says would reduce the City's required capital contribution — but this would also shift long-term parking-revenue control to the developer rather than the City.[4]

Subsidies and lease terms it relies on

  • $15M direct City contribution to garage construction (or an EIFD tax-increment financing structure as an alternative), partially offset by impact-fee contributions from Presidio Bay's separate USGS campus redevelopment project.
  • Waiver of all City impact, planning, and permitting fees.
  • Property tax waiver during the construction period, achieved by delaying City conveyance of each site until construction completion.
  • 99-year ground lease (vs. the RFP's 55-year default), with full building ownership reverting to the City at lease expiration.
  • Conventional market-rate construction debt and impact-aligned private equity — explicitly chosen instead of competing for LIHTC or tax-exempt bond allocations, which the developer says are oversubscribed and would introduce financing uncertainty.

Phased construction timeline

  • Pre-application (≈6 months): site feasibility, initial City meetings, community outreach, design development — begins immediately upon selection.
  • Entitlement submission & review (≈9 months): formal application, CEQA process (assumes AB 130 exemption), Planning Commission hearing. Formal entitlements begin only after the City's anticipated November 2026 vote authorizing the project.
  • Preconstruction (≈9 months): final design and construction drawings, building permit review and approval.
  • Construction (≈38–40 months total): Phase 1 delivers the standalone parking garage, the first residential building, and the first public park concurrently; two subsequent phases deliver the remaining residential buildings and the second park.
  • Deeding and leasing: the garage is deeded to the City immediately upon completion; 99-year ground leases are executed for the residential parcels.
Bottom line. Measured against the RFP's own four Project Priorities, the three proposals are not equally compliant, and the gap is not close. Alliant Communities is the only proposal that meets the RFP's income-targeting, unit-count, and design priorities outright, with only a minor, repayable financing request attached to the parking priority. Related California/Alta Housing meets the unit-count and income priorities but, by its own admission, has no privately financed path to the required parking — it is asking the City to become its bond issuer. Presidio Bay Ventures fails three of the four priorities: it does not deliver the income-restricted housing the RFP asked for, it does not deliver the income distribution the RFP asked for, and it does not deliver developer-financed parking — asking instead for a direct $15M contribution, fee waivers, and a construction-period tax waiver, on top of a 99-year lease that exceeds the RFP's 55-year term. None of these are this site's characterizations manufactured from ambiguous language; each is stated plainly in the developer's own filing, cited above by page and section.

Project labor requirements: what the RFP asked for

The RFP's four Project Priorities (Section 3.1, A–D) say nothing about wages, union labor, or prevailing-wage compliance. The only place labor comes up at all is Section 5.2.E.6, under "Community Benefits, Engagement, and Local Partnerships" — a request that proposals include "identification of any commitments to use local building and construction trades and union labor." That is a disclosure requirement, not a substantive mandate: the RFP asks developers to say what they'll commit to, but does not require any particular commitment as a condition of a compliant proposal.[1] That distinction matters for reading what follows — none of the three developers is out of compliance with the RFP on this point, because the RFP never made a specific labor commitment a requirement in the first place.

Labor and union commitments as stated in each developer's own Dec. 15, 2025 filing
 Alliant CommunitiesRelated California / Alta HousingPresidio Bay Ventures
Baseline labor approach States it is "not carrying the cost of requiring union labor" as a baseline assumption, using competitive open-shop bidding to preserve budget for the required parking structure.[2] No baseline commitment either way. States only that the team is "proud to enjoy a high level of Trades involvement" on its projects generally, without a specific wage standard or percentage for this project.[3] States "the project assumes an open-shop construction approach" as the basis for its own hard-cost budget and pro forma.[4]
Contingent commitment Would comply with SB 35's "skilled and trained workforce" requirement only if that ministerial streamlining pathway is used — a path the filing frames as a possible trade-off, not a plan.[2] Flags that its market-rate component may pursue the AB 130 CEQA exemption, which would require prevailing wages for that portion if used — but does not commit to using AB 130.[3] Would comply with "applicable labor standards" only if it uses the AB 130 CEQA exemption for entitlement streamlining — again framed as a possible path, not a commitment.[4]
Local hiring / workforce development Describes a competitive bidding process with "targeted outreach" to solicit local subcontractor and Section 3-eligible business participation, alongside local hiring for operations.[2] No specific local-hiring or workforce-development commitment stated beyond the general Trades relationship described above.[3] Commits to prioritizing "local labor participation and workforce development programs," including outreach to regional training and apprenticeship programs, while maintaining the open-shop baseline.[4]
Reading this table: All three developers are RFP-compliant on labor, because the RFP didn't require a specific labor standard — only that developers say what they're offering. What the filings show is a spectrum of how much each one offers. Alliant and Presidio Bay are the most direct: both state plainly, in their own words, that their base-case budgets assume open-shop (non-union-scale) labor, and both tie any move toward prevailing-wage or "skilled and trained workforce" standards to a specific state streamlining law they may or may not end up using. Related/Alta's filing is the least specific of the three — it neither commits to a wage standard nor rules one out, describing only a general history of "Trades involvement" without stating what that means in dollar or percentage terms for this project. Save Downtown Menlo's characterization that Alliant is the one developer that "dared suggest" building without prevailing wages is accurate as to Alliant's own stated baseline, but it undersells how vague Related/Alta's own commitment is by comparison — silence on a wage standard is not the same as a commitment to one, and neither Related/Alta's nor Presidio Bay's filing rules out a similar open-shop approach for the bulk of construction.

Sources

  1. [1] City of Menlo Park, Development on Downtown Parking Plazas 1, 2, and 3 — Request for Proposals, issued Sept. 15, 2025 (submittal deadline Dec. 15, 2025). Sections 3 (Project Priorities), 4 (Development Terms and Assumptions — land disposition, city subsidy, phasing). menlopark.gov — RFP PDF
  2. [2] Alliant Communities, Response to Request for Proposals — Menlo Park Downtown Parking Plazas 1, 2, & 3, filed Dec. 15, 2025. menlopark.gov — Alliant response PDF
  3. [3] Related California & Alta Housing, Response to Request for Proposals — Residential & Mixed-Use Developments, Downtown Parking Plazas #1, 2, and 3, filed Dec. 15, 2025. menlopark.gov — Related/Alta response PDF
  4. [4] Presidio Bay Ventures, Development on Downtown Parking Plazas 1, 2 & 3, filed Dec. 15, 2025. menlopark.gov — Presidio Bay response PDF
  5. [5] Remarks by Councilmember Drew Combs, City Council study session, June 2, 2026 — characterizing the estimated City cost of the Related/Alta garage-financing gap at approximately $26–27M. This figure is a councilmember's public estimate from the dais, not a number stated in Related/Alta's written proposal. No published transcript is linked here; verify against the meeting recording before citing further.
  6. [6] Hernandez, Adriana. "Menlo Park gets three proposals for housing on downtown parking lots." Palo Alto Daily Post, Dec. 19, 2025. padailypost.com
  7. Context: City of Menlo Park, Three proposals received for downtown Parking Plazas, Feb. 9, 2026 news release, confirming the three respondents and the RHNA/Housing Element context. menlopark.gov — news release