Photo post: downtown Sunnyvale apartments

The set of new apartment towers that replaced the Town and Country shops on one side of downtown Sunnyvale have had a few years to settle, now. The common spaces were slow to open, as they often are, and there were online complaints about noise from the nearby station, but I assume people have made their peace now with it being neither Midtown Manhattan nor Beverly Hills. Until COVID, most of the commercial spaces were tenanted, though the bars and gyms have been hard hit. Advertising suggested several people might want to share the apartments, and I think that's the case with many of them, but they are relatively dog friendly and I imagine they can be nice for young families, too. Unfortunately the architecture, though better than the stuff in downtown San Jose, is stark and having different-colored slabs on different blocks and little oak trees and old-fashioned-style lampposts along the streets doesn't do enough to offset the impression of canyons of doom.

This is the main official effort to humanize the development: a palm garden above street level.



( Last month, I took some photos of what the residents are doing to make their own environment less depressing. )