Billionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin is giving needy business owners in the tech boom town of Los Altos, California a hand by giving some of them a break on their rent payments. Brin’s real estate investment company, Passerelle Investment Co., has been busy buying properties in the municipality, which is home to about 30,000 people. The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, a non-profit organisation established by the late Hewlett-Packard co-founder and his wife, has also been involved in the effort to help local businesses.
Passerelle has bought at least six properties in the town over the past three years, according to a story published in The Wall Street Journal. The company has introduced family-friendly businesses to the area, such as a bookshop, a “playspace,” and “Bumble,” a cafe which features a supervised play area and a sandpit. The company has even been flexible enough to reduce rents temporarily when a city construction project made it difficult for prospective customers to reach stores in a particular area.
Los Altos is located near Google’s Mountain View headquarters. According to Forbes, this town has the 24th most expensive zip code in the United States.
Its demographic makeup is 70.6 per cent white, 23.5 per cent Asian, and 0.5 per cent African-American, according to 2010 Census figures. The town has approximately 11,000 homes, and the majority of families are made up of about three people. The population of Los Altos is well educated, since the town has some of the best public schools in the nation.
With Passerelle’s help, the town is becoming more welcoming to business owners who want to attract customers with young families. Other developers are reportedly planning to build a shopping centre in the town’s downtown core.
