Built on a former Downtown Palo Alto parking lot and finished in 2016, the 5,165-square-foot penthouse atop the four-story Foundation Capital building at 550 High Street is now seeking a new tenant.

The unit’s open living room, which is flanked by a high-end kitchen on one side and a wood-paneled office and separate media room on the other, opens to a central outdoor terrace.

It’s three bedrooms, two of which open to the terrace as well, are all en-suite, with marble bathrooms and walk-in closets.

And the penthouse has been priced at $34,000 a month, but that does include two (2) parking spaces in the building’s underground garage below.

27 thoughts on “Penthouse in Palo Alto Priced at $34K a Month”
  1. Who is the target tenant here? High level tech mangers/officers? A bit unusual with the rest of the small building being offices. Is this owned individually or is it owned as part of the 4 story Foundation Capital building? If the latter I’m guessing this has been a rental unit from the get-go.

    1. I’d guess the target tenant is an exec, either directly in Silicon Valley business or in the financial services that tend to cluster around PA.

      Nice location, but just a block away from the railway means you’ll hear train horns from 5am to 1am.

      1. No. This is basically being rented as an office to a tech startup in violation of the zoning they got when they built the building. This is in line with office rents, not residential rents.

        1. This seems an odd combo. It’s hard to believe Palo Alto requires housing to be part of small office developments such as this.

        2. ding ding ding

          the zoning for this site, CD-C, allows a commercial floor area ratio of 1 plus a residential floor area ratio of 1. If this were a legit residential use, several smaller units would have higher rent than one big one.

  2. Wow! What a gorgeous wood panel office. Initially thought it was a sauna. I just want to stare at it, not even sit in it.

  3. Is there a market for rentals like this? If you can afford $34K/month, why not simply buy something? I can see it for short-term use or for corporate functions, but not much else.

    1. Buying is not always the best option, even for the rich. Might make sense if you just plan on staying here for a few years. Nice homes in Palo Alto are $5 million.

      1. But, you’re looking at a cool ~$1,000,000 for a two year stay at Casa Officina, with no tax break.

    1. Yeah but it ain’t SF. It’s just a boring burb, and not at the center of a prime city. No way they’ll get that crazy rent…unless rich and stupid comes along…

      1. The average sale price in that “boring burb” was around $1,500 per square foot over the past year versus under $1,100 per square foot, or roughly 30 percent less, in “prime” San Francisco.

        1. Who cares? Point is, it’s a suburb. It’ll be hard to get a super high rent like that. That type of price lends itself more to a prime city, not a satellite, even if it’s an expensive satellite.

          1. Got it. So by “prime” you actually meant less expensive and a longer commute to Sand Hill Road, Apple, Google, Facebook and the rest of Silicon Valley.

          2. I’d put my money on the properties with the highest rents (>$15K/month) being located in Atherton, Woodside and Los Altos Hills. And as boring as PA is, they are an order of magnitude sleepier still

          3. PA is a city. You might as well say Berkeley is a suburb of SF.

            Have you ever been to downtown SF after 7pm? Last week when I was in boring PA the downtown strip was thriving that evening in spite of the cold weather.

      2. You may think Palo Alto is boring. But if you’re an exec parachuting into a company in downtown Palo Alto, it might be perfect.

      3. People need to disabuse themselves of the notion that SF is the center of everything. Newsflash – it isn’t by any stretch. Indeed home prices are higher in Palo Alto than in SF. The weather is better too.

      4. Trust me, there are a lot of rich and stupid in SF.

        PA is a nice, small peninsula city close to both Oz (SF) and SJ. Granted, you don’t have the pleasure of playing hopscotch over the homeless passed out on the sidewalks or watching the eyes of a junkie roll inside his head after shooting up at 1pm in front of families dining al fresco under heat lamps in July. Those poor folks down in PA are really missing out on the action.

  4. Like living in an office and that internal courtyard is rather glum. Regardless of your ability to pay, I would want some real outdoor space.

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