Benchmark Capital
2480 Sand Hill Road, #200

Menlo Park, CA 94025

(650) 854-8180

sspurlock@benchmark.com

Date : May 18, 2007

To : Mayor Fergusson

                        Menlo Park City Council

From : Steve Spurlock, Operating Partner

                        Benchmark Capital - 2480 Sand Hill Road, #200

RE : Quadrus Square Footage Interpretation

                        May 8th Council Decision

We were informed by Quadrus of the Council's decision to apply a
stricter interpretation of the square footage measurement to residential
and commercial properties in Menlo Park. We understand that this will
have a detrimental affect upon Quadrus in general and on Benchmark in
particular. We were very disappointed to learn that our plans for
enclosing our 300 square foot balcony to provide two needed offices may
no longer be allowed because of this recent decision.

Our construction plans are now complete and we intended to apply for
permit this week, but with the new restriction Quadrus advised that this
was no longer possible because they would have to re-measure their
entire site to confirm that the 300 sf remains available. Apparently
the mechanical rooms installed in most of the buildings will count
towards their remaining square footage and thus leave no available
square footage to complete our suite.

Is there anything that Benchmark Capital can do at this time so we can
complete the 300 sf addition? This work was being done in conjunction
with some additional tenant improvement work within our space and
renovating one area without the other will require plan revisions and
rescheduling of the work. To date we have spent nearly $25,000 for the
preparation of plans and research to develop the 300 sf addition. When
we leased this suite from Quadrus we included a lease condition that
would allow us to fill in three small balcony areas, of which two were
completed in 2005. Neither Quadrus nor Benchmark would have made this a
legal condition of the lease if we knew that the square footage would no
longer be available.

Please consider this request and advise if there is anything we can do
to move this project along. This additional 300 sf will not affect
traffic, will not be noticed by any neighbors, will appear as if it were
built during the original construction and in no way creates an adverse
impact on the City. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Steve Spurlock

cc: Justin Murphy

      Thomas Rogers

 
Received on Fri, 18 May 2007 13:45:16 -0700