The Sunnyvale Sun
Letters & Opinions
This vision puts sun in Sunnyvale downtown
By Tommy Carrig
The Town Center is dead? A rebirth in Sunnyvale? Can we leave the mediocrity behind?
The people of Sunnyvale want to come out of the "black hole'' Town Center and explode into the millennium as a new star. There is a way. It is to lead the world out of the carbon-based fuel era.
Can we the people convince the council to act for the people instead of the one percent sales tax to run the government? Will they be able to take a giant leap for mankind that will bring health and prosperity and a flourishing economy to Sunnyvale?
The Town Center has been waiting and waiting for a plan that the whole city can embrace. After 12 years we have found it. It is a zero energy development and we can call it Solar Town Sunnyvale.
We take the failing housing market out of the equation by building a high tech energy-efficient model that will attract smart people, tourism and lead the way into a new economy by eliminating foreign oil and using green building.
We connect all the schools and the neighborhoods with walking and bike paths from the San Francisco Bay Trail to the train station, through the Solar Town Center Village Green over Mathilda Avenue to the Community Garden and on to City Hall, connecting Mary Avenue to the 280 bicycle overpass into Cupertino.
The Sol (for short) is where you can have a religious service and a drink with a friend. A family dinner, a picnic, a dance at a nightclub and, down the street, a natural food store.
It has easy store access. The shops are connected to the parking garages. And they're clean and feel clean, not just concrete. Sunlight from sun tunnels and high, non-claustrophobic ceilings with lookout spots to just feel a breeze. They are actually filled with sculptures and places to sit. People even meet to play their guitars because of the acoustics.
Baseball hitting areas and driving ranges for guys who are bored to death with the shopping. Shuffleboard and pingpong, three-point basketball shooting contests in the sports area with a robotic contest for techies and a chess tournament. Quilting, and pottery and all kinds of food.
There is an array of solar panels on every roof, and a wind turbine on the Mozart Office Plaza. All this powers the electric shuttles and the escalators and lighting.
There are wash down hoses for the maintenance crew with a water recycling station and metal and plastic recycling.
Goods and waste are moved through the basements and tunnels.
There are aquarium water fountains with really cool fish.
The living spaces have terrace gardens and south facing greenhouse windows to collect passive solar, as well as solar panels that feed the grid. The windows are in the shade in summer to let cool air flow through and to enjoy our beautiful weather and evenings. The orchards will be brought back by the condo associations and it helps pay their association dues from the sales at the farmers market.
The oversized buses that can't fit in one lane downtown have been replaced with hydrogen gas vans and electric shuttles that go from parking lot to lot.
If it is crowded you get a ticket as you enter the free parking garages from a real person who tells you a place to park. You just tell them where you want to shop or eat. The grid tells you the available parking and you are assigned a spot instead of creating pollution by driving around with no end in sight.
The developers work with property owners and the city in the surrounding area looking out for and considering everyone because they know that in the long term that it's about people. It's a lifestyle experience!
And tourists come to model their community after Sunnyvale's!
And the art! The sun in Sunnyvale creates the art through prisms to splash color on walls throughout. There is a central arch made of crystal prisms. And there are mirrors to shine the light. Lasers shoot into the prisms and also make holographic displays.
This isn't a mall. It's a masterpiece!
Can the city council embrace the future and lead the world? Encourage them to do so.
This will be done, I'm sure. I just hope Sunnyvale can seize the day. It's here. Let's embrace it!
Tommy Carrig is president of the Heritage District Neighborhood Association.
