Tesla has announced its plans to move its headquarters to Palo Alto. What’s funny is they will still be retaining their showroom and sales operations on El Camino Real in Menlo Park.

So the big question is, why bypass Menlo Park? What does Palo Alto have that Menlo Park doesn’t?

For some critics, the more “politically correct” question would be “what does Menlo Park have that Palo Alto doesn’t?” The answer: the Menlo Park City Council. Many critics blame the city council for impeding progress in the city by focusing more on property developments that do not bring in tax revenues, and giving the cold shoulder to businesses operation which spin out tons of cash to the city coffers. Some blame the city’s Business Development Manager for not doing all they can to woo the right companies in Menlo Park’s direction.

As for Tesla, one of their primary reasons for moving to Palo Alto’s Stanford Research Park is: it’s proximity to Stanford University. Of course, Stanford would be a perfect source of fresh engineering talents that could ramp up their 350 employees to possibly 600 (which is the new facility’s maximum capacity)! Another reason, according to Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk:  "Silicon Valley and the Stanford Research Park are synonymous with innovation and entrepreneurship. It's an ideal place for a new car company trying to rethink many aspects of the traditional automotive business." Palo Alto is known as a hub for green technology. Tesla’s future neighbours would be no less than The Electric Power Research Institute -- a leading think-tank specializing in electricity technology -- and Better Place, a company trying to build networks of charging stations and battery-swap stations around the world.

Menlo Park’s Business Development Manager David Johnson noted that at one point, Menlo Park was in the "running" but unfortunately , the city could not meet the space requirement of 350,000 square feet. He further stated “ In addition, they (Tesla) were offered substantial incentives from the City of San Jose and the City of Menlo Park has not made it a practice to compete for relocating businesses by offering incentives.”

So there goes a 600-strong labor force that could have revved up Menlo Park’s tax revenue. That’s 600 lost lunches, 600 possible new tenants/ new homeowners (not yet counting their families)  lost to Palo Alto just because Menlo Park “has not made it a practice to compete for relocating businesses by offering incentives.”

And there goes El Camino Real’s missed opportunity at a face lift. With the recent move-out of a big car dealer, El Camino is going from ugly to empty. It is beginning to feel like a steel town somewhere in the Midwest.

Ian McAvoy, chief development officer for SamTrans says “Very few people are against upgrading El Camino Real." Well, it seems very few people are against it but even fewer are actually doing something about it.