A sign on the 600 block of Santa Cruz Avenue still advertises the "future 600 Block Public Plaza." It was on the block in late May, when an Almanac photographer captured it alongside kids biking toward El Camino Real on a street that has been closed to eastbound cars since 2020.
Five months later, the plan behind that sign has changed. At its October 13 study session, most of the Menlo Park City Council said it would rather pilot a hybrid block than build the permanent plaza. The pilot would reopen the eastbound lane, remove the bike lane and keep a smaller gathering area in the parking spaces, according to The Almanac's report on the meeting. Nothing is final yet. City Manager Justin Murphy said the next step is a council vote on reopening the lane at a future meeting.
This block hosts after-school hangouts, outdoor dinners and the monthly concert stage, and its future is being decided less by how it gets used than by what is about to happen around it. A pilot also puts a clock on it. If the council goes that way, the block's ordinary evenings over the next six months to a year will become the data a future council uses to settle it.
Three versions of the same block
Councilmember Drew Combs proposed running the hybrid for six months to a year. The city would collect data on how the community responds and compare it with the current large plaza and with the block's pre-COVID setup, when both traffic lanes were open. "What I'm proposing is something that punts this to a new council in a year, but at that point they will have additional data points about how (this option) looks in practice," Combs said, as reported by The Almanac.
| Configuration | Eastbound lane | Bike lane | Gathering space | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current block | Closed since 2020 | Present | Full closed lane | Kept by council vote in June 2025 |
| Hybrid pilot | Reopened | Removed | Smaller area in the parking spaces | Favored by a council majority on Oct. 13; vote pending |
| Pre-COVID | Open | — | None | The baseline the pilot would be measured against |
| Permanent plaza | Closed | — | Full plaza, newly designed | Had been estimated to finish by end of 2027 |
The permanent plaza already has money in it. City staff told the council they had spent about $61,000 on furniture and $30,000 on a design consultant, leaving about $250,000 for the project. Councilmember Jeff Schmidt was the only member who wanted to keep going with the permanent plan. In The Almanac's account, he said, "We've done all this work, we've sunk some cost into this thing, and we're a year away."
Why the decision is about the blocks around it
Mayor Betsy Nash told the council she had done a "complete 180" over the past month. She cited trash building up around the plaza, and she raised a practical worry that keeping Santa Cruz Avenue closed could get in the way of construction planned nearby.
That construction is real and close by. A developer has proposed a six-story residential building at 800 Oak Grove Avenue. The city is also considering housing with replacement parking on downtown Parking Plazas 1, 2 and/or 3, with a minimum target of 345 affordable units. Three developer teams presented concepts to the council on June 2. Separately, the city's Parking Plazas 7 and 8 renovation page schedules resurfacing, wider stalls, lighting and EV charging for Plaza 7 in spring 2027 and Plaza 8 in spring 2028.
"I'd actually love to see a plaza expanded at some point and generally a larger pedestrian area downtown, I just think right now is not the time," Nash said, according to The Almanac.
Her "not the time" refers to the construction she said a closed street could obstruct, which includes the six-story building proposed at 800 Oak Grove and the parking-lot housing the council wants built.
The storefronts that front the experiment
The pilot would change the street in front of a specific set of businesses. The Downtown Menlo directory lists these on the 600 block, starting from the El Camino end:
- Stacks, 600 Santa Cruz Ave.
- Peabody Fine Art, 603
- Mr. Green Bubble, 604
- Kyosho Sushi, 605
- Santa Cruz Barbershop, 607, and Park Avenue Salon, 609
- Cold Stone Creamery, 611
- Menlo Cafe, 620, and Dolma Imports, 622
- Abbey Carpet Flooring Center, 626
- Bar Loretta, 639, and Bistro Vida, 641
- Cheeky Monkey Toys, 640, and La Migliore Aveda Concept Salon, 644
- Walgreens, 643, and Yves Delorme, 656
- Tilak Indian Cuisine, 683
There's a gap between Bar Loretta and Bistro Vida. Left Bank Brasserie served its last dinner at 635 Santa Cruz Ave. on June 23 after 28 years downtown, The Almanac reported. In a 2023 city inventory of outdoor uses, Left Bank had seating and umbrellas in the closed travel lane. Bistro Vida had an extended parklet with seating in that lane, and Stacks had an on-street parklet. That inventory is three years old, but it shows which storefronts made the most use of the closed lane. One of the two biggest users of that lane is now an empty storefront.
Where the curb gets crowded
A small detail in the pilot matters to anyone who eats outside on this block. The hybrid would put the smaller gathering area in the parking spaces. The city's 600 block plaza page says the Streetary dining areas sit in those same on-street parking spaces along restaurant frontages. If the lane reopens, the public seating and the restaurant seating will be competing for one strip of curb. How the pilot splits it between Bistro Vida's patio, Stacks' parklet and a shared seating area is a design question the council has not answered yet.
The block's storefronts are also changing for a separate reason. On June 23, the council approved zoning changes that let salons, spas and similar personal services open on downtown ground floors without a conditional use permit. Small-scale recreation and financial institutions can apply for permits, subject to review or caps. The city's announcement adds that offices can now use the back portions of ground-floor retail spaces. The Almanac framed the change as a response to growing downtown vacancies, with large storefronts empty and rents higher than many retailers could afford. Its example was 714 Santa Cruz Ave., one block up. When a long-closed space like 635 reopens, it could be something other than a restaurant. That could change how much the block's businesses depend on outdoor tables at all.
Fourth Fridays, and the case for keeping room
The strongest argument for the full plaza came from the people who program it. The Downtown Menlo Fund launched Fourth Fridays this summer with bands up and down Santa Cruz Avenue and a main stage on the 600 block. Marnie Foody, the nonprofit's chair, told the council that downtown business owners reported higher sales on event nights. She said losing the plaza would limit the series. "We are seeing literally hundreds of people coming not just from Menlo Park, but from the surrounding area, to our downtown," she said, as reported by The Almanac. She added that the group had hoped to build up to a full schedule of events in 2027.
The October edition is this Friday, October 23, from 6 to 9 p.m. The Fourth Fridays lineup puts Country Cougars, with line dancing, at the center of the 600 block plaza from 6 to 8 p.m. Balloon artist Steven Koehler will be at the kids stage, mapped to 650 Santa Cruz Ave., in the corridor near Chase Bank, Aveda, Susie Cakes and Cheeky Monkey. The page doesn't list November or December dates yet. For the holidays, the city's Light Up the Season is Friday, December 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Fremont Park, at Santa Cruz Avenue and University Drive, a short walk west of the plaza.
What to watch next
The next concrete step is a council agenda item on reopening the eastbound lane. No date has been set. If the pilot passes, Combs' six-month-to-one-year window means the decision lands with a future council. That council will be weighing data from Fourth Friday nights and ordinary weekday evenings against a pre-COVID baseline and against a plaza design the city has already spent about $91,000 on.
Tom grew up with this downtown and keeps track of how changes to the street ripple through to the homes around it. If you live near Santa Cruz Avenue and want to know how the plaza decision and the planned housing nearby could affect your property's value, Tom Correia can walk you through it with a free home valuation.
