Santana Row the Future of Silicon valley?

If you haven't been there, you might like it more than you thought.

Santana Row is a collection of shops and apartments, as high as seven stories. In a word, "upscale". Brooks Brothers, for example. I went a long time without setting foot on the place. Kind of missed the old Chinese buffet they tore down.

But lately, two recommendations.

1. Maggiano's is a winner. Excellent food, excellent bread, excellent dessert, all you can eat (but not literally a buffet).
2. Pizza Antica. Really good thin crust pizza, meaning you might be able to eat a medium all by yourself, but it's good stuff.

Both have excellent service. You pay more, but you come away believing that the price/performance ratio was pretty good.

Rosie McCanns Irish Pub and Restaurant offered some of the worst service I've ever encountered while paying $5/beer, but it saved us money. A lot of money. We went home.

But restaurant reviews aren't the topic here. Do we expect more Santana Rows? Would you like to live in Santana Row? Would it be like living in San Francisco or Manhattan?

First off, what it's not: well connected to trains/BART/etc. What it does have is ample free parking. You're expected to arrive by automobile.

Some point out that it's a phoney city. Fully agreed, it's phoney. But it's not that different than some parts of San Francisco, parts with no low rent buildings within a block. So if your followup to "so what" is "I miss the economic diversity", or "I like to have people of all kinds around", then observe that real cities have places you'll find that, and places you won't much find that.

Prices are much like SF prices. For $1M you get a nice pad. Couple of bedrooms, couple of baths.

But the real question here is "are we seeing a vision of the future". I think we are. I think we will see more Santana Rows. Not all the same, some a bit more down to earth, but all stretching 60-70 feet into the air. Making intense use of real estate. Ground floors retail, everything above that residential.

But not so fast. In an era of automobiles and Walmart, who needs all that retail? Sure, an area the size of Santana Row can support 25 odd restaurants and bars (if you can call them bars). But one wonders: is Brooks Bros. really making it? What about those other boutiquey things? You can bet that even if they weren't making it, FRT (the REIT which owns Santana Row) would be slow to show them the door and try to fill the store with, um, what?

Lots of local retail is based on one thing alone: local convenience. Local convenience is maximized when people can live their lives without an automobile, and spend the money they would otherwise spend on an automobile on local convenience.

So I predict that the isolated, eventually connecting islands of 70 foot development will represent the future of Silicon Valley, the transition will be slow, and may well be still in its infancy twenty years from now.