The Mercury News is reporting that Sand Hill Property, the former developer of the Sunnyvale downtown, accidentally destroyed one of two heritage buildings it was required to preserve as part of its efforts to rebuild Edgewood Plaza in Palo Alto. Whoops. Sand Hill hasn’t explained what caused the demolition to occur.
Now, Peter Pau is faced with rebuilding the destroyed building. The city wants him to rebuild using original materials, but oops, he destroyed the materials too. So now he has to come up with new materials that look like the old materials. In addition to rebuilding, the Palo Alto City Council may impose monetary penalties.
The best part is that Palo Alto’s staff is recommending that the city hire a consultant, paid for by Peter Pau, to review all of Sand Hill’s plans and to be on site to observe construction. In other words, Palo Alto wants someone watching over Peter Pau’s shoulder for the duration of the project, probably to make sure the other heritage building isn’t accidentally demolished too.
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