Palo Alto's University Avenue might get all the glory, but Hamilton Avenue is getting the growth.

A glassy new project by local architect Ken Hayes has been proposed for a corner across the street from City Hall, at Hamilton and Ramona Street. It is the latest in a string of major developments that are expected to add vitality, mass and a whole lot of office workers to downtown's second-busiest thoroughfare.

The corner building, which once housed Radio Shack, would be demolished to make way for a four-story structure with retail on the ground floor, two apartments on the fourth floor and offices everywhere else. Like in other recent developments in the area, offices make up the bulk of the project. Altogether, 15,000 square-foot building would include 9,190 square feet of office space.

Despite its 50-foot height, the maximum allowed under city law, the new development is unlikely to stick out in this part of the city, which is zoned "downtown commercial." City Hall is eight stories high, as is the old Casa Olga, which is in the midst of being converted into a hotel. It stands a block away, on Hamilton and Emerson Street. In addition, developer Charles "Chop" Keenan is now working on a similar project -- a four-story building with retail on the ground floor and offices above -- less than two blocks away, at 135 Hamilton Ave.

Another four-story building in the area, at 100 Hamilton, made headlines last year when it was sold for a staggering $64 million. Its tenants include the data-analysis giant, Palantir.

Because the Hayes building would be consistent with the zoning code, it would not have to go through the type of extensive review period that characterizes projects seeking zoning flexibility. On Thursday, it cleared one of the few procedural hurdles in its path when it received the blessing of the Architectural Review Board. Members of the board, which had also reviewed this project on June 6, had some suggestions relating to colors and materials used in the new building before voting 3-0, with Randy Popp and Naseem Alizadeh absent, in favor. But they generally had good things to say about the proposed building, which board member Lee Lippert calling it a "handsome building" and board member Alex Lew saying it will be a good fit on the Hamilton Ave block.

"I think the massing is well done to integrate it in with the neighboring buildings," Lew said. "I really like the mixed-use component of the building."

At the same time, the new development will do little to ease the anxieties of area residents over downtown's well-documented parking shortage. In the last three years, residents throughout downtown, particularly in Professorville and Downtown North, have been calling for the city to do something about the recent disappearance of parking spots on their residential streets, a consequence of rapid office growth nearby. The city has taken a multi-pronged approach to solving this problem, instituting a moratorium on a parking exemption in the zoning code, exploring new parking garages and revising its permit system for existing garages.

Both the Casa Olga project and Keenan's proposal were blasted by area residents for failing to "fully park." Each relied on provisions in the zoning code to avoid building enough parking to accommodate the future tenants.

Lippert noted Thursday that the parking problem, while real, is beyond the purview of the architecture board, which is mainly concerned with the building itself.

"I sympathize with what residents in the SOFA (South of Forest Avenue) area and the area further south are dealing with, but frankly our job here is to review the standards with regard to quality and character and seeing that the buildings meet those standards," Lippert said.