SamTrans: Somebody has to ask....

I love the Daily Journal but let's face it--hard-hitting journalism is not its forte.  The Daily Post drills points home in Palo Alto even when they are a little questionable, but that is what Big J "Journalism" is all about.  The latest example is this DJ puff piece about SamTrans looking to buy new office space because their building is 40+ years old.  Oh Dear.

SamTrans has identified four properties of interest in the potential acquisition of a new district headquarters building, all located within walking distance of a Caltrain station. 

During a meeting Wednesday, Dec. 6, staff presented four properties of interest to the board, including The Gateway at Millbrae — located at the intersection of the Millbrae Caltrain and BART station — Circle Star in San Carlos and two downtown Redwood City properties. All are strategically located near a Caltrain station and range in size from about 71,000 to 180,000 square feet. 

The push for modernized SamTrans headquarters, currently located in San Carlos and occupying 140,000 gross square feet, began in 2019, arising out of concerns the 44-year-old building was not only too small for the growing number of employees, but it adhered to outdated 1970s building code and seismic standards.

So I have to ask:

1.  Why is there a "growing number of employees" who work in an office?  Not bus drivers or mechanics, just cube dwellers?  The system is on life support and should be cutting cube dwellers before the rest of us, who seldom take the bus, have to pay for the overhead. It's a local bus system, not NASA trying to get to Mars before Musk.

2.  Are these cube dwellers even coming into the office?  The same-day Daily Post edition had the Big J piece about how getting into the top floor of the Palo Alto City Hall is sort of like entering CIA headquarters.  Nobody in PA government wanted the Post to see so many empty cubes.  What is the SamTrans Zoom bill these days?

3.  Why not lease?  The reporter repeats the spin as "coupled with a commercial real estate market now seeing sky-high vacancy rates, the circumstances to purchase property near transit are increasingly attractive."  Uh, no.  With commercial space seeing sky-high vacancy rates how about going for a tasty 10 or 15 or 20 year lease.  In 15 years we might not even need a physical bus authority office space.  Somebody has to ask.  

Comments

[Joe]

Someone asked for a bit more information on the Palo Alto city hall situation. Here's a bit of what Dave Price wrote this week under the headline "City manager locks public out of City Hall".

Palo Alto City Manager Ed Shikada has locked down City Hall and member of the public can't visit without an employee with a key card.

The lockdown was never brought to City Council for a public discussion or up-down vote.

Post reporter Braden Cartwright was told last week that the move was to increase safety for city workers. He asked for examples of the harm that has come to city workers because the upper floors we accessible to the public. He received no examples which makes me think the safety arguement is B.S., and there's another reason why the upper floors have been locked off.

I think the city workers don't want the public to find how how many of them don't show up for work, or arrive late and leave early.
----------------------
He goes on with examples, but you get the point.

[Barking Dog]

https://sfyimby.com/2023/12/samtrans-board-plans-new-headquarters-at-millbrae-station.html

[resident]

Ray Mueller is the only one with any sense

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/samtrans-hq-moving-to-millbrae/article_01804030-9e20-11ee-b9c0-ff962c2fb7b9.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1702998018&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

[Joe]

To reinforce my original point about the Daily Post doing, or in this case, publishing hard-hitting stuff, today's Post has a guest commentary by Supe Ray Mueller about Caltrain simply failing to check that people pay to ride the train.

It's a brutal takedown of a severely mismanaged entity. He did an experiment by riding Caltrain for three weeks and "realized early on that very few people were paying to ride". It goes on. "Conductors" never asking for Clipper cards except one who then didn't bother to check if they had been tapped! Even Mueller stopped paying and nothing happened.

This is an agency in need of a complete rehab. Forget shiny new offices--we need shiny new employees and contractors.

[HMB]

Really? Nearly every time I ride the conductor catches someone.

[resident]

Mueller has no reason to make up a story and then get it into a newspaper.

[Joe]

Following news last week that an SF real estate investment company, Swift, bought a part of the commercial space at the Gateway at Millbrae station, in part because of the SAMtrans lease, now Caltrain is looking at doing the same.

I thought Caltrain was effectively broke and facing a "cliff" in the next year or two? But the DJ notes:

Caltrain only has a few more months to decide whether to move its headquarters to The Gateway at Millbrae, where another county transit agency, SamTrans, is heading next year — or move elsewhere.

The two agencies currently occupy the same San Carlos facility but, at the end of last year, SamTrans closed on a 180,000-square-foot building neighboring the BART and Caltrain stations. The agreement will allow it to lease the building for 30 months, with the option to acquire it for $126 million after that time period.

But Caltrain is still undecided whether to continue occupying the current building, find a brand-new spot or move in with SamTrans.

Board members have signaled mixed opinions on the matter. During a December SamTrans meeting, Ray Mueller, San Mateo County supervisor and SamTrans board member, said he felt taxpayer dollars would be better spent remodeling the current building.

But during the Caltrain Board of Directors meeting Wednesday, June 6, Board Member Monique Zmuda said it would be ideal to continue under the same roof.

The agency currently spends about $585,000 each year on the current building’s cost and maintenance, and a move elsewhere is likely to increase annual expenses by about $2 million to $3 million.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/caltrain-eyes-new-hq-options/article_5d982b54-279f-11ef-9fb1-4bc28dfe992c.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1718114423&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

[Peter Garrison]

Stay and save money. Like you’d do with your money.

[Joe]

This always seemed like a foregone conclusion. From the DJ:

Caltrain will share its new headquarters with SamTrans in the Gateway at Millbrae Station, it announced.

“Our new headquarters will provide the modern facilities and convenient location our team needs, with seamless access to the Millbrae Transit Station and the entire Caltrain corridor. After a thorough evaluation of several options, we believe this is the best choice for Caltrain,” Caltrain Executive Director Michelle Bouchard said in a statement.

Caltrain will be on the fourth floor and use about 26,500 square feet of the new 180,000-square-foot SamTrans headquarters. Caltrain has agreed to a 10-year lease term that will begin at the same time SamTrans begins occupying the space, with two five-year options to extend the lease.

SamTrans acquired the building in December 2023 through a lease-to-purchase agreement at a cost of $126 million.

[Phinancier]

The clowns at Caltrain can't even run a short railroad but they want to build a million square feet of commercial space.....ridiculous.

San Jose approves permits for Caltrain’s downtown towers project
San Jose has approved permits for Caltrain’s development project near Diridon Station that envisions over a million square feet of commercial space between two large towers.