Peter Ong - Vallco Cupertino Mall Suggestions3/9/2018
Vice Mayor Rod Sinks and Council Member Steven Scharf
Subject: Vallco Shopping Mall
Dear Vice Mayor Rod Sinks and Council Member Steven Scharf,
I'm writing on behalf of the suggestions regarding new usage for Vallco Mall that I hope will be shared
with the Mayor and other Cupertino Board Members. While I do not live in Cupertino, I have driven
down and visited Vallco when the mall was populated with businesses and visitors.
What happened to Vallco is tough to determine. Some would consider it too large of a mall as walking
the floors just takes time, not to mention doubling back to stores and remembering where they were
located. At the time, I found the mall to be too enclosed, too dark, the storefronts too small, and the
architecture too linear. In any case, Vallco has been a vacant mall for years and I believe that the land
could be used for better purposes. The land is so large, and the parking lot so vast, that the City of
Cupertino has a wonderful opportunity to develop this area into something totally new and unique.
I for one believe that the land should still be used for retail and entertainment purposes again. I saw the
idea of having housing and retail with a living park roof that didn't get the votes.
Here are my suggestions for Vallco if a new mall won't be built.
• 1 suggest a museum the likes of which the world has never seen. The reason I suggest this is that
with the rising population, many with kids, the Bay Area needs locations to foster the mind and
encourage Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills.
With the high-tech in Silicon Valley and the millionaires and billionaires in the Bay Area, a museum
with dinosaur animatronics, fossils, a huge dome Planetarium, theaters, virtual reality, and artifacts
would attract people from all over. When people visit the Bay Area, some drive as far as Napa for
the wine and to Monterey for the aquarium. A stop in Cupertino might make sense ... just along
Highway 280.
The California Academy of Sciences won't expand its footprint in the near future. I believe the CA
Academy is too small as it lacks much of the collection it once had. It doesn't have many fossils,
insects, nature settings, anthropology, astronomy, or models. It doesn't have the space to display
most of its stored collections. By partnering with the CA Academy and the neighboring University of
California and Stanford, NASA's Ames Research Center, in addition to private sponsors like high-tech
Silicon Valley companies, the Vallco area could be the ideal museum destination of a "Smithsonian
Institution" that the West Coast never had. The area has ample parking space. Some of the features
would be:
• Tropical Rain Forest, be it a dome or like Biosphere
• Bamboo forest climate and walk-through complete with taxidermies
• Huge temperature control room. What is it like to be in the hot desert? The freezing Arctic? A
room with movable scenery could give visitors a glimpse and feel of life in other parts of the
world.
• X -Prize exhibit room and Genius Contest Challenges (for Silicon Valley)
• Huge screens hooked up to webcams throughout the world to show visitors how it's like in Paris,
Rome, Beijing, Tokyo, Venice, Cairo, etc. in live real time. One can see the sun rise and sunset by
the hours of the digital clocks above these locations. One can hook into the Google network of
maps and streetviews to travel to remote areas of the world. One can see pandas in
Washington DC and San Diego or African animals at the watering hole.
• Theater rooms to showcase all the video captured by scientists in the USA from their
expeditions
• Dinosaur exhibits of animatronics in their environments. Now I don't mean one or two
dinosaurs on a platform like other museums, but a huge forest with dinosaurs similar to Jurassic
Park where visitors could walk among the artificial jungles and plains and under the
Brontosaurus. Bendable OLEDs could showcase the fossils, internal organs, servo mechanics,
food intake, blood vessels, and outer skin.
• Astronomy section with landscape displays of exoplanets, 1:1 models of probes, rovers,
satellites, and rockets, graphics of telescope images, and the latest NASA data and photos. The
CA Academy of Sciences lacks the space for astronomy displays. Team up with the Universities
all over the USA and there will be plenty of floor space to display the latest astronomy. A
movable floor could be used to sculpt the latest ideas of how Exoplanets surfaces appear. A
mockup of the Orion and Dragon capsule and ISS Space Station will show visitors the future of
US space flight.
• A robotics section showcasing the latest technological products from participating companies.
Robot arms, Maker's Faire, drones, self -driving cars, etc.
• 3D IMAX. The Bay Area lacks many 3D IMAX screens. This could add infusion to produce more
IMAX movies.
• Insect and gem hall. Again, vastly larger than what the Bay Area museums currently have.
• Other rooms for exhibits as museums evolve.
• Native American and other world cultures (University of Vancouver's museum excels in this
area).
• Parking structures and underground storage
The purpose of this Vallco Cupertino Museum is to unite all the California Universities' collections and
private companies' contributions into one location. The CA Academy of Sciences cannot do this; it lacks
the floor space. Other museums are private, such as George Lucas's museum of Movie History and the
Fisher Museum of Art in Stanford are located in their own cities; they had no other place to settle and
build. Who knows... perhaps in future years Cupertino could build art museums or additional structures
next to this one.
Sincerely,
Peter Ong