University Circle

Drive northeast on University Avenue from downtown Palo Alto, cross the creek and you leave Santa Clara County without much warning. The first thing on the right is a cluster of office towers and the Four Seasons hotel. This is University Circle. It is part of East Palo Alto, though it sits on the Palo Alto side of Highway 101 and feels like an extension of its neighbor.

The site has one of the sharpest before and after stories on the Peninsula. Until 2000 it was Whiskey Gulch, a two-block strip of liquor stores, bars, music clubs, small shops and apartments. Its replacement became a home for law firms, investors and a luxury hotel. This page covers both. For the rest of the city, see our East Palo Alto guide.

Where University Circle is

University Circle occupies a roughly triangular piece of land on the southwest side of Highway 101, between the freeway and San Francisquito Creek. Palo Alto's Crescent Park neighborhood is just across the creek. The city of East Palo Alto puts the project area at 22.8 acres. University Avenue runs right through it on its way to the freeway interchange.

The location explains its value. It is a short walk from the quiet streets of Crescent Park and about a mile and a half from downtown Palo Alto. It sits right at a Highway 101 exit and on the main route to the Dumbarton Bridge. For a law firm or an investment office, that meant a Palo Alto feel at a time when office space downtown was scarce.

The story of Whiskey Gulch

A dry university and a wet strip

Leland Stanford wanted his university surrounded by sober towns. Deeds in Palo Alto banned the sale of alcohol from the 1880s and a long-standing rule barred alcohol sales within a mile and a half of the Stanford campus. Whiskey Gulch sat just past that line. Liquor stores, bars and music venues clustered there to serve students and Palo Altans who wanted a drink. The nickname stuck for decades. The alcohol rules near campus were relaxed in 1970, but the strip kept its character.

A real business district

Whiskey Gulch was more than bars. The city describes it as East Palo Alto's main commercial hub, made up mostly of two and three story buildings with shops on the ground floor and apartments above. It had more than 100 affordable apartments, a dozen local nonprofit agencies and the city's only full-service supermarket. By the 1990s many buildings were run down and the area had serious problems with drug dealing and crime, which city leaders cited as a reason for redevelopment.

Redevelopment

East Palo Alto formed the University Circle project area in 1998. Starting in the fall of 1999, the developer, University Circle Inc., bought, relocated and demolished the existing properties. The city says more than 150 families, more than 40 businesses and 12 nonprofits were relocated or bought out. About 15 to 20 percent of relocated households bought homes elsewhere in the Bay Area. All of the nonprofits found new space in the city, but few of the businesses did, because East Palo Alto had so little commercial space. The old strip came down in 2000.

The project changed the city's finances. The city reports that assessed value in its redevelopment area rose from $7.3 million at its formation to $422 million by 2009. It also became a symbol in debates about displacement that still shape East Palo Alto politics. Both points are true at once and both are part of the story.

The Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley

The hotel opened in January 2006 at 2050 University Avenue with 200 rooms, including 27 suites. It is the main hotel in East Palo Alto and one of the luxury hotels closest to downtown Palo Alto and Stanford. Room types listed on its website include Deluxe and Premier rooms, one-bedroom suites and a Silicon Valley Signature Suite.

Dining and drinks

• Quattro: contemporary California-Italian food with seasonal, local ingredients, open for lunch and dinner. It is the default business lunch room for the towers next door.
• Quattro Bar: a renovated wraparound bar with cocktails and small plates.
• [esc]: the lobby lounge, with coffee and pastries daily and afternoon tea on weekends.

Spa and pool

The hotel has a spa, a fitness center and an outdoor pool with cabanas that guests can rent. Pool access is for hotel guests based on availability. Check the hotel's site for current spa services and day pass policies, since they change.

Booking tips

Rates follow the Stanford and business calendar. Commencement weekend in June, big football weekends and major conferences push prices up. Outside those dates, weekend rates can come in below weekday business rates. You can check Four Seasons Silicon Valley rates against other hotels for your dates. Our luxury hotels guide compares it with Rosewood Sand Hill and the downtown Palo Alto options.

The office towers

Three Class A office buildings share the site with the hotel, at 1900, 1950 and 2000 University Avenue. The city's summary lists about 450,000 square feet of office space, about 15,000 square feet of retail space and underground and surface parking. At the end of 2012 the tenants included the law firms DLA Piper and Ropes and Gray and financial firms such as Wells Fargo Advisors and TD Ameritrade.

The buildings have long served the same market as Sand Hill Road and downtown Palo Alto: lawyers, investors, wealth managers and startups that want a prestige address near the freeway. Tenants change often and recent leasing listings showed space available in all three buildings. There is nothing to tour. The hotel's lobby lounge is the easiest place for a visitor to sit down, with coffee and pastries every day.

Visiting University Circle

On foot or by bike from Palo Alto

From downtown, walk or ride northeast on University Avenue past Crescent Park. You cross San Francisquito Creek on a short bridge and the hotel appears on the right. It takes roughly 30 minutes on foot. The route passes some of Palo Alto's grandest older homes, which makes it a pleasant walk on a mild evening.

By car

University Avenue is the only way in by road. It also feeds the Dumbarton Bridge, so traffic is heavy at commute times. The office complex has underground and surface parking. Hotel guests should check parking options with the hotel. If you are heading across the freeway to shop, our Ravenswood 101 guide covers the stores on East Bayshore Road.

Pairing it with other stops

• Lunch at Quattro, then a walk back through Crescent Park to downtown Palo Alto.
• A drink at Quattro Bar after a Stanford event. The campus is about three miles away.
• Tacos on University Avenue in East Palo Alto proper, listed in our East Palo Alto food guide.

Placing it in the bigger story

University Circle sits where three histories meet. One is Stanford's long effort to keep alcohol away from campus, which created Whiskey Gulch in the first place. Our history of Palo Alto explains how the founders wrote temperance into the town's deeds. Another is East Palo Alto's struggle to build a tax base after it incorporated in 1983. The third is the rise of Silicon Valley money, which made a hotel and law offices on this small triangle worth building.

Some residents remember Whiskey Gulch fondly as a place with real community businesses. Others remember the crime and blight. The East Palo Alto Community Archive holds newspapers, photos and documents from the period if you want to read the arguments in residents' own words.

Frequently asked questions