City, Santa Clara County
© McCormack's Guides
94085, 94086, 94087, 94088, 94089
High-tech bedroom city located in center
of the original Silicon Valley. Bordered by Mountain View, Cupertino and Santa
Clara, and on north side, San Francisco Bay and a wildlife refuge of marshes
and salt ponds and trails. www.mccormacks.com
A city with a genuine old town and on
Murphy Avenue a popular restaurant row with sidewalk cafes. And a city that
regrets that it bulldozed other streets in its old town to make way for a mall
that never caught on.
Sunnyvale
is revamping the mall to restore the old-town look and bring back more grid
streets. The mall will retain its Macys and Target. Also in the plans for this
section, a movie complex and more offices and stores. Much of the work is
scheduled to be completed by 2008 or 2009.
Click for regional or detailed map
For
many residents, a great commute because the jobs are so close. Second-most
populous city in Santa Clara County, 137,538 residents, and still adding homes
and apartments but at a slower pace. The new housing can be found the
north side but most residents live south of Highway 101.
Housing
units in 2008 totaled 55,394 and included 21,241 single homes, 5,176 single
attached, 24,881 apartments and 4,096 mobile homes.
From 1950 to 1960, Sunnyvale built about
11,000 residential units; the following decade, about 13,000; the next decade,
another 13,000. In the 1980s, construction dropped to 6,300 units. In the
1990s, the census reported, about 6,600 units were built. Between 2000 and
2006, the city added 941 units. www.mccormacks.com
When
Sunnyvale boomed, the three-bedroom home was the rage and not too far behind
was the two-bedroom home. In later years, the four-bedroom home became popular.
With
new housing these days, lots are small and homes large, almost filling their
lots. Many Sunnyvale homes have
large front lawns, streets lined with tall trees, roofs shingled with wood. The
look of the town is more suburban traditional but there are surprises. Some
neighborhoods favor an A-frame design with big windows.
Many
of the homes have been renovated or remodeled. Level of care generally high.
Good
mix of housing — cottages in the old town, small homes with one-car
garages, several large mobile home parks and sprawling one-story ranchers from
the 1950s. The newer homes favor two stories and four-plus bedrooms. On the
north side, near the light-rail stations, are large condo and apartment
complexes built in the last 10 years.
With
the exception of San Jose, Sunnyvale has the most mobile homes of any city in
the county, the great majority of them located in parks on the east side, north
of Highway 101. Some mobile parks have been demolished to make way for
apartments. www.mccormacks.com
The
neighborhood malls and shops have been improved and updated. The supermarket will have a natural
foods section, the deli will carry prosciutto and a variety of cheeses. Trader
Joe's. Great variety of restaurants.
Sunnyvale
is home to hundreds of high-tech firms — semiconductors, software,
telecommunications and is the
headquarters city for several firms, including Yahoo and Advanced Micro
Devices.
The
National Aeronautics and Aerospace Administration (NASA) took over Moffett
Field, on the Sunnyvale border, from the Navy and is creating a research and
development campus. If moving to Sunnyvale, take a look how the runways line up
at Moffett, which still has a fair number of flights, and check out the noise.
For
a fairly large city, Sunnyvale has a low crime rate. Two homicides each in 2005,
2004, 2003 and 2002, zero in 2001. The counts for previous years, 1, 1, 2, 0,
0, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2. See Crime.
In
summer, cops patrol parks on bicycles. Cops work with schools and counselors to
keep kids straight. Police and firefighters are one and the same, public safety
officers. www.mccormacks.com
Served
by Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Santa Clara School districts and, at high school,
by Santa Clara and Fremont School districts, for the latter, mainly Homestead
and Fremont High schools. Rankings on a statewide comparison for all come in
well above the 50th percentile, some in the 80s and 90s, an indication of high
parental interest in education. Many of the schools have won state and national
awards for academic excellence or for being well run. See Schools.
Voters
in Sunnyvale Elementary District in 1996 and 2004 passed renovation bonds. In
1998, Fremont Union High School District passed a renovation-construction bond
for $144 million. Fremont High School has opened a science center. In 2004, the
Fremont district passed a tax to maintain its programs.
The
Cupertino district gets high marks for its instructional programs. See profile
on Cupertino.
About
two dozen parks, tennis center with 13 courts, another 55 courts at other
locations, two theater groups, 200-seat theater, dance company. Community
center. Senior center. City has contracted with school district to make school
facilities open to public: gyms, swimming pools, playing fields. Baseball,
soccer, two golf courses (9 and 18 holes). Twin Creeks Softball Complex
(privately operated) has 10 fields. Bowling alley, lawn bowling. Youth Family
Center-sports complex at Columbia Middle School. Gymnastic center. Skate park.
Several
town events, including, Holi, a Hindu carnival. Just up the road, the Shoreline
Amphitheater, which books big-name performers and bands. www.mccormacks.com
Baylands
Park, 70 acres, opened in 1993. Trails to Bay, picnic grounds, playground, next
to a 100-acre wildlife preserve. One trail is part of an effort to run 400-mile
trail around Bay Area.
State
tax laws reward cities with high retail sales and strong tax bases; they get more
revenues to spend on local amenities. Conversely, the laws often penalize
bedroom towns, even rich ones, with few stores.
Sunnyvale,
with many stores and high-tech industries, offers summer camps and dozens of
activities for all ages. The activity schedule put out by the city runs over 30
pages.
Four
freeways, two expressways. Highway 237 at north end had its traffic lights
removed, which speeded up traffic. Caltrain up the shore to San Francisco or
down to San Jose, with stops at major cities. In 2005, Caltrain made Sunnyvale
a stop for its bullet trains to downtown San Francisco. Buses. San Jose
Airport, when traffic moves, is within a drive of 10-15 minutes.
Light-rail
line, which runs from Campbell to San Jose to Mountain View and other high-tech
cities or neighborhoods, has six stops in Sunnyvale: three in Moffett
Industrial Park, three along Tasman Drive. Light-rail station near San Jose
International Airport. Ten-minute drive to the airport. www.mccormacks.com
In
the early Thirties, when Sunnyvale was orchard country, an employee of Libby,
McNeil & Libby, the canner, scooped up leftover chunks of pears,
pineapples, peaches and cherries to bring home to his children. Presto! The
first fruit cocktail. Water tank at company was painted to resemble a fruit
cocktail can. When the company closed the plant, the tank was retained and
declared an historic monument.
Another
Sunnyvale first: Rooster T. Feathers, a comedy club, was the first place to
install a video game — 1972. For the ooh-la-la side of life, Sunnyvale
has at least one topless club tucked away in the industrial side of town.
Chamber
of commerce (408) 736-4971.
• Built to
track the satellites of the Soviet empire, the Onizuka Air Base — which
had no planes — at Sunnyvale at one time employed over 3,500. When the
Evil Empire went belly up, the base was whittled to 278 people and in 2005 was
ordered closed. Many of the jobs were transferred to Vandenberg base in Santa
Barbara County. The base, 23 choice acres, is being turned over to Sunnyvale
but the military will have its say in the planning.
• Sunnyvale illustrates the passing of one era and the embrace of another. The Cold War technology, about 15 years after the Cold War ended, is being dismantled and replaced by web high-tech and other high-tech uses. Not in all parts of town. If you are in the area, circa 2007, look north of Highway 237 for the huge dishes that tracked or gathered data on the Soviet empire and a few yards away the cranes building office and research buildings.
City web site:
www.sunnyvale.ca.gov
