Remote Surveillance Trailer in Menlo Park, CA

The new development in Menlo Park will provide permanent housing and support services.

Bea Karnes, Patch Staff

MENLO PARK, CA — Construction is officially underway on Oak Gardens, a new housing development designed to provide permanent homes and support services for military veterans experiencing homelessness and their families.

Community members, elected officials, veterans’ advocates, and business leaders gathered on Feb. 26 for a groundbreaking ceremony at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Palo Alto Health Care System campus in Menlo Park, where the 62-unit development will be built.

Led by nonprofit developer MidPen Housing, Oak Gardens will offer affordable housing and wraparound services to help veterans regain stability.

“One of the hardest impediments we face to build housing is the land,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller, whose district includes Menlo Park. “That you're willing to share it and lease it is an incredible thing.”

Situated on a 2.1-acre site, Oak Gardens will be surrounded by heritage trees and feature outdoor community spaces, a community garden, a dog run, a walking path, and a meditation circle. Residents will have access to VA medical care, on-site case management, and a large community room and kitchen for gatherings.

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The site is also conveniently located near shops, restaurants, and schools.

“We’re honored to collaborate with the VA on Oak Gardens, a significant opportunity to provide affordable homes and comprehensive services to veterans in need,” said Matthew O. Franklin, president and CEO of MidPen Housing. “We applaud the City of Menlo Park, San Mateo County, and all of our partners for their commitment to permanent supportive housing, a proven solution to address homelessness.”

The project is being funded through a mix of public and private sources, including $1.4 million from San Mateo County’s Measure K half-cent sales tax. Other contributors include the City of Menlo Park, Housing Trust Silicon Valley, National Equity Fund, Inc., California Department of Housing and Community Development, First Citizens Bank, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.

Oak Gardens is part of a VA program that leases underutilized federal land for the purpose of developing supportive housing for veterans.

“Through enhanced use leases, the VA leverages underutilized properties to serve veterans in powerful ways,” said Jean Gurga, director of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. “Oak Gardens is a prime example of how these partnerships create vibrant communities, directly aligning with our mission to enhance the lives of veterans with essential housing and support services.”

With construction now underway, Oak Gardens is set to provide a safe and stable environment for veterans, ensuring that those who have served the country have a place to call home.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency wants a Menlo Park campus gone. So Uncle Sam will auction off the former home of the U.S. Geological Survey office.

The U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees federal real estate, will hold a gavel over the 17-building office and research campus at 345 Middlefield Road, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.

The GSA will auction the 17-acre campus through a sealed-bid auction, according to a webpage created for the property. Bids in the blind auction, which opens to the public on April 15, start at $85 million. Prospects will place competing bids without seeing other offers.

The property is the former site of a U.S. Geological Survey office, a federal bureau responsible for monitoring and analyzing natural hazards.

The Vincent E. McKelvey Federal Building, built in 1996, the largest on the Menlo Park campus, has offices, laboratories and a library, according to the GSA. The agency leased more than 300,000 square feet for years until it began moving in 2019 to new offices near NASA, in Mountain View.

Its lease was included in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s growing list of lease cancellations, according to the Business Journal. DOGE also canceled leases for the Internal Revenue Service office in San Mateo and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office in San Jose, KRON4 reported. Together the three leases could provide nearly $11 million in savings, the publication said.

The Menlo Park property, marketed for redevelopment, includes 17 buildings built between 1953 and 1995. Many of the buildings are offices and labs.

The site comes with a vacant cafe and credit union, and a childcare center occupied by GeoKids, an early childhood development facility. Geokids’ lease expires on Aug. 31 and will be extended for another year, an unidentified GSA spokesperson told the newspaper.

— Dana Bartholomew

Two Bay Area chefs are looking for a comeback with their next restaurant. Chefs Meichih and Michael Kim will open Yeobo, Darling in Menlo Park in late May. The two opened Maum in Palo Alto before launching Bao Bei in Los Altos, both on the Peninsula and now closed. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the Korean Taiwanese restaurant is meant to land somewhere between a tasting menu restaurant and a counter service outfit.

In either case, the restaurant ought to make a fine dining fan’s list. Michael Kim, who is Korean, and Meichih Kim, who is Taiwanese, have cooked across Michelin Guide-approved restaurants, including three-Michelin-starred Per Se in New York City, plus Benu and SPQR in San Francisco. Low-ABV drinks come from staff at Bar Mood in Taipei, one of Asia’s 50 Best Bars, while Korean master sommelier Kyungmoon Kim is compiling a wine and sool list.

East Bay restaurant revives while workers seek pay

Richmond restaurant Baltic Kiss was opened in 2022 by East Bay restaurateurs chef Tony Carracci and partner Suzie Vasko known as Miss Suzie, popular for their business Black Star Pirate BBQ. The restaurant hit financial hardship, though, and the owners launched a series of initiatives to raise money, including online fundraising, benefit concerts, and more. Now East Bay Nosh reports the ventures were successful, but debts, breaches of contracts, and employees who filed complaints with the California Labor Commission are some of the issues mounting for Carracci and Suzie.

Service workers grab “know your rights” cards

Due to recent administrative empowerment, ICE is knocking on lots of restaurant doors across the country. In San Francisco, bar and cafe owners alike are banding together to create resistance. Broke-Ass Stuart distributed 5,000 worker’s rights cards, those small red cards with legally vetted steps to take in the face of federal employees. The cards are available in a growing list of businesses in the city, including Vesuvio and Matterhorn Restaurant and Bakery.

Pie and coffee for Pi Day at a lovely SoMa cafe

There’s a quality pop-up for matheletes’ favorite numerical holiday this year. Astranda Bakery and baker Jessica Little Fu are bringing pie to Telescope Coffee on Friday, March 14, from noon to 3 p.m. For the second year in a row, fans can expect slices of the black sesame pie, with possible flavors including strawberry matcha cream pie.

The building was home to an award-winning chef's restaurant and is now occupied by a San Francisco-based restaurant chain.

Recent mortgage reports indicate Chris Kelly, investor of the Sacramento Kings and Facebook’s former chief privacy officer, was behind on loan payments for his transit-oriented Menlo Park building as recently as Feb. 15.

Kelly bought the building in 2012 to open a restaurant with award-winning American chef Bradley Ogden. It was part of a series of restaurants the pair opened together that stretched all the way to Houston, Texas. Ogden exited the restaurant venture in 2017. The Menlo Park restaurant closed around the same time.

The property at 1165-1195 Merrill St., across from Menlo Park’s Caltrain station, sat vacant until 2020 when a San Francisco-based Thai restaurant named Farmhouse Kitchen took on a 10-year lease.

But recent loan servicer reports indicate the commercial building is in financial distress: the borrower missed scheduled mortgage payments in November and December and the commercial mortgage-backed securities trust that owns the property's $4 million mortgage has drawn $17.5 million in "protective advances" from the property's reserve accounts to cover potential taxes and legal fees, according to loan-servicer updates to bond investors.

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What’s more, Kidder Mathews listed the 7,400-square-foot property for sale for $8.6 million.

When Kelly took out the property's $4.25 million, 10-year term loan from Argentic Real Estate Finance in 2021, the building’s annual net operating income was $360,361 on revenue of $446,450. The mortgage had a remaining $4.04 million balance as of Feb. 15, according to loan-servicer reports. Argentic sold the loan that same year to its current owner, a CMBS trust arranged by an affiliate of Morgan Stanley.

By 2023, the property's NOI and revenue had nosedived: the property reported a net operating loss of $41 while revenue fell to $83,464 that year, according to servicer reports. Those same reports indicate that between January and June of 2024, the latest-available reporting period,the property recorded a net loss of $80,129 on $1,890 in revenue.

Chris Kelly could not be reached for an interview. Farmhouse Kitchen did not respond to The Business Journals' calls and emails.

Kelly first garnered recognition when he became Facebook’s first chief privacy officer and general counsel. He left the company in 2009 to run for California Attorney General. He lost to Kamala Harris, the now former vice-president of the United States.

In 2013, Kelly became an investor of the Sacramento Kings alongside Vivek Ranadivé. The Atherton resident has also invested in several tech companies, including San Francisco-based Alchemy, a blockchain developer tool.

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