By Eric Lutkin

Los Altos is at a critical crossroads in its development. Over the next two years we will have the opportunity to make critical decisions that will help determine our destiny over the next 10-20 years.

Critical to making these decisions is having a vision for what Los Altos wants to become: Is it a sleepy bedroom community with minimal commercial development? A thriving “city” with a downtown that serves as the hub for economic activity and social life for the community? Something else? We need to support our civic leaders in developing this vision.

There are three interrelated issues that should be looked at together to help shape the future of Los Altos.

 • How to draw people to downtown?

 • How to provide community services to our citizens?

 • How to build a sense of Los Altos community that extends beyond immediate neighborhoods?

When possible, the solutions to these issues should reinforce each other to build a stronger community.

Specifically, the current problems of how to revitalize downtown, what to do with the city-owned property at First and Main and what to do about an aquatic center can potentially be answered with a shared solution.

Los Altos needs to attract people to downtown. To do this we need to have businesses, events and facilities that draw people to downtown. Once they are in downtown they are much more likely to spend time and money there, which wil help both local merchants and the city prosper.

The property at First and Main needs to be developed as one of the anchors for downtown. This could be the hotel plan currently under consideration or some other retail development that locates retailers with drawing power in Los Altos. We need to identify and recruit retailers who can become the initial draw to pull shoppers to Los Altos. Many of them will probably not be very interested in the current retail storefronts that are available in town. The First and Main property could become the cornerstone of retail development either with or without a hotel.

In addition to a people/retail magnet at First and Main we need to attract one or two midmarket restaurants to downtown, restaurants that can attract people to downtown on their own merits, not restaurants that people go to because they are already in downtown. Restaurants like Bistro Elan or Cafe Brioche on California Street in Palo Alto would fit this description. These restaurants need to be on preferably Main Street or maybe State Street to help drive traffic to downtown.

Another facility that could draw people to downtown would be locating the proposed aquatic complex in the Civic Center. This location would place a significant number of people every day close to downtown businesses where they could shop either before or after using the facility. Given the 500 to 1,000 people expected to use the facility every day, it could be a large source of additional visitors to downtown that could drive substantial economic benefits for the community. Its location close to downtown could also be used as a marketing tool to attract new merchants as it will demonstrate our commitment to create programs and facilities to generate customer pull to downtown.

Our town needs a vision of where it wants to be in five to 10 years so we can make good decisions today that help us get there. Without this vision we will make isolated decisions that will potentially prevent Los Altos from being the successful community we all want it to be.

Eric Lutkin is a Los Altos resident living in the Rosita Avenue neighborhood, the site of a proposed two-pool community swim center.