What Happens to the Santa Cruz Avenue Plaza Now That Menlo Park's Council Has Changed Its Mind?

"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." Councilmember Drew Combs said that at the Oct. 13 study session on the 600 block of Santa Cruz Avenue, as The Almanac reported.

The block between Curtis and Doyle streets has been closed to eastbound traffic since 2020. In that time it has hosted teenagers after school, outdoor tables for the restaurants, and this year's new Fourth Fridays concerts. Until this month the city was moving toward making the plaza permanent. Now a majority of the council wants to test something smaller. That would give one lane back to cars while downtown prepares for the construction headed its way.

Three versions of the same block

Under the pilot the majority supported, the eastbound lane would reopen and the bike lane would go away. A smaller gathering area would remain in what are now parking spaces. Combs suggested running it for six months to a year. The city would then compare it with the current plaza and with the block's pre-COVID layout, when both traffic lanes were open.

Nothing has changed on the street yet. At the Oct. 13 study session, councilmembers were asked for feedback on the block's future. City Manager Justin Murphy said the next step is a council vote on reopening the lane at a future meeting. No date for that vote has been announced, and the city has not said how long the switch would take.

How a pandemic stopgap became a design project

The pilot reads as a reversal because the block had spent three years moving toward permanence. The city's project page for the 600 block plaza lays out the timeline:

1. 2020. Eastbound traffic closed so downtown restaurants and shops could use more outdoor space during the pandemic.
2. Aug. 29, 2023. Council adopted Resolution No. 6860, keeping part of Santa Cruz Avenue closed for communal space and outdoor dining.
3. June 10, 2025. In an informal 3-1 vote, the council kept the closure, citing the block's use as a gathering place.
4. July 8, 2025. Council held a study session on designing a permanent plaza.
5. Nov. 18, 2025. Council gave direction on furniture and favored contemporary seating.
6. Oct. 13, 2026. In a new study session, most of the council favored the hybrid pilot.

The 2025 design work had specifics. According to The Almanac's July 2025 coverage, the city worked with the urban design consultant M-Group on a "living room" concept for the block. Ideas included flexible seating, shade sails, lighting and a painted roadway. The study set aside about 2,500 square feet for public programming and about 1,200 square feet for a pedestrian walkway.

At the November 2025 furniture session, The Almanac reported that the council looked at a picnic table priced at $2,430 to $2,970 and a movable round metal table at $620 to $805. The city then ordered custom tables, chairs and benches from DuMor, Inc. Its project page said they would arrive in one shipment and be installed in spring 2026.

What has been spent, and what is left

At the Oct. 13 session, staff said the city has spent about $61,000 on furniture and $30,000 on the consultant for the permanent plaza. About $250,000 remains for the project. Economic Development Director Collette Hanna said that under the current plans, construction of the permanent plaza would likely finish by the end of 2027.

Those numbers explain the one dissent. Councilmember Jeff Schmidt backed moving ahead with the permanent plaza. He worried a pilot would unsettle what he called an already "concrete proposal." "We've done all this work, we've sunk some cost into this thing, and we're a year away," he said, as The Almanac reported.

Why the timing changed the math

The reason for the shift has little to do with the block itself. According to The Almanac's account of the meeting, Mayor Betsy Nash said she had done a "complete 180" on the plans over the past month. She said she had often seen trash and blight build up around the plaza. She also raised a more structural concern: a closed Santa Cruz Avenue could get in the way of construction on other projects near downtown.

She named the projects. A developer plans a six-story residential building at 800 Oak Grove Ave., and the city is working to get housing built on three downtown parking lots.

Nash still supports a larger plaza in principle. "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," she said, per The Almanac.

So the pilot is a bet on sequencing. Downtown gets its housing projects started first, and the bigger plaza question waits for a council that can see how the smaller one worked.

What Fourth Fridays needs from the block

The plaza's strongest argument this year came from its newest user. Fourth Fridays is a free live-music series that keeps downtown businesses open late. The nonprofit Downtown Menlo Fund launched it on July 24, 2026, as Palo Alto Online reported. The fund's Fourth Fridays page listed four 2026 dates: July 24, Aug. 28, Sept. 25 and Oct. 23. No November or December dates are posted, so the Oct. 23 show was the last date on the 2026 list.

At the Oct. 13 meeting, The Almanac reported, the fund's chair, Marnie Foody, said downtown business owners told her their sales jumped on Fourth Fridays nights. "We are seeing literally hundreds of people coming not just from Menlo Park, but from the surrounding area, to our downtown," she said. She also said that losing the plaza would limit the series, and that organizers had hoped to build it into "a full schedule of events in 2027." No 2027 dates have been published.

This is where the pilot matters most for anyone who spent a summer evening on the block. A full closed lane holds a band and a dance floor. A gathering area squeezed into parking spaces holds far less. Whether next year's series fits in the smaller space is one of the questions the trial would answer.

The storefronts on either side

The 600 block is home to some of downtown's most-used addresses. The Downtown Menlo business directory lists Stacks at 600, Kyosho Sushi at 605, Menlo Cafe at 620, Bar Loretta at 639, Cheeky Monkey Toys at 640 and Bistro Vida at 641 Santa Cruz Ave., among others.

The block's businesses have had a hand in the space from the start. In June 2025, The Almanac reported that Ali El Safy, owner of Bistro Vida and Bar Loretta, had added tables, planters and decor at his own expense. He welcomed that year's decision to keep the closure and spoke up for a small stage and the return of his Bon Marché market.

The block also works as downtown's starting line. The city's Halloween Hoopla parade on Oct. 24 began behind Cheeky Monkey at 640 Santa Cruz Ave. and ran down the avenue to Fremont Park.

What stays the same this season

For now, the block stays as it is: closed to eastbound traffic, with the gathering space in place, until the council votes. The next major downtown event is the city's Shop local! Light Up the Season at Fremont Park, where University Drive meets Santa Cruz Avenue. It runs Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., rain or shine, with youth performances, hot cocoa and the lighting of the Menlo Park oak tree.

When the vote comes, the city's agendas and minutes page is where the item and its staff report will first appear.

How downtown Menlo Park uses its streets over the next year will shape the blocks around Santa Cruz Avenue for a long time. If you would like to talk through how the plaza decision and the planned downtown housing could affect a home nearby, Scott Dancer is glad to share what he is seeing. Let's Connect.