Note: Sources for the following information are from city reports and charts, The Mercury News, Silicon valley Business Journal and the developers themselves.
More than 58 development proposals are somewhere along the planning pipeline for downtown San Jose and another 51 are proposed for less than a half mile outside the downtown area – defined as the core are plus Downtown West (Diridon Station Area)
While some developers delayed plans, many have actively “looked to the future” and moved their housing, office, hotel and retail projects along. All these proposals may ultimately result in permits to build, finding sources to fund projects is another matter in making them get under construction.
The developers are a mix of long-time South Bay companies and a lot of new-to-San Jose developers. The new guys came into San Jose by buying up property at a record pace — $3 billion-plus invested since 2017!
Here’s the lay of the future downtown landscape.
Office
Downtown San Jose has less than 9 million square feet of office space. If they are all to be built, 14 proposals for downtown San Jose total an additional 21 million square feet of new office space, which would triple the amount used today:
Collectively, these projects could add more than 70,000 workers to downtown’s employee base, thus strengthening daytime activity in the downtown core. COVID-19 shows that people are as productive or maybe even more productive at home, and that most work-at-homers also prefer some time at the office. It will be interesting to see what transpires when workers are allowed back in the office.
The total number of hotel rooms downtown could spike by one-third or more if eight projects are built out:
If the 1,800 or so rooms are built, downtown’s hotel-room count would grow 60 percent, from 2500 to 4300. However, hotel developers have slowed their proposals down for the most part, especially in downtown, where hotel occupancy has plummeted during the pandemic as a result of stay-at-home orders.
Residential development has slowed a bit during the COVID breakout, but no developers have backed out of their plans.
Last time we counted, 8,500 homes proposed in the downtown core, under construction or recently completed for 28 different proposed sites downtown – most of them high-rises. Our latest count, 26 proposals with estimated unit counts totaling 9,296 units and not counting an SJSU property and an Urban Community project on South Second that have not had plans fleshed out yet.
Within a half-mile of downtown, many on the developing West Side, another 17 projects are in the works, totaling another 4,100 units, according to city reports.
Completed and For Rent:
In the past year, 856 apartments became available for rent in the downtown core, and another 479 just outside the core. In addition, pre-leasing offices have opened for two more properties representing 1,270 units.
The only 78 new homes for sale in 2019 and 2020, located in the North San Pedro area, were purchased.
Pre-leasing:
For Sale:
Brandenburg/North San Pedro housing projects:
Other downtown residential under construction:
Housing that has been entitled or is in process:
On downtown’s periphery within one-half mile
According to city planning reports:
Now open
Modera The Alameda (at Stockton) 168 units, now open
Second Street Studios, 1140 S. Second St., now open, 135 units.
New construction:
Ohlone Blocks A, B and C (at Sunol and San Carlos, Sunol and Auzerais, 789 units;
Hanover Cannery (10th and Taylor) 403 units;
715 West Julian, by The Hanover Company, 249 units;
CORE’s 777 Park Ave (at Laurel Grove), 182 units;
Approved projects not yet under way:
Japantown Corporation Yard Residences by Related California Urban Residences, , North 6th Street, 520 units;
699 W. San Carlos St., First Communities Housing, 365 affordable units.
Diridon TOD, 402 W. Santa Clara, 325 units;
Spartan Keyes Senior Housing, 295 E. Virginia St., 301 units;
777 W. San Carlos St (at Sunol), by Danco Group of Arcata, 156 affordable apartments;
425 Auzerais (at Delmas) 130 units of affordable housing on five stories by Eden Housing;
73 N. Sixth St., 126 units;
Park Delmas, 123 units;
363 Delmas Ave (near Auzerais) 120 units;
7th and Empire, 92 units;
Sparta (Santa Clara and 11th) 85 units;
Roosevelt Park, by First Communities Housing, 80 affordable units;
Montgomery 7 (365 Lorraine Ave. at West San Carlos) 54 units;
Pending projects:
Most new housing and office buildings proposed include retail components on the ground floors.
Urban Catalyst, for example, hopes to recruit an entertainment business to follow in the footsteps of the former Camera 12, and include a 5,000-square-foot rootop lounge on its proposed office building on Fountain Alley.
Retail square footage proposed for all development is more than 300,000 square feet (sf).
Here’s examples of what retail will fit into buildings of other uses:
30,000 sf; CityView Plaza rebuild, 24,000 sf; Park Habitat, 21,000 sf; 188 W. St. John St. and North San Pedro area 30,000 sf; Parkview Towers, 18,500 sf; 27 S. First, 17,268 sf; Miro, 15,000 sf, mostly restaurants on its Santa Clara Street-facing corners; Greyhound site, 14,000 sf; The James, 11,000 sf; Gateway Tower, 10,000 sf, Modera, 9,200 sf; Post-San Pedro Tower, 9,000 sf; Spartan Heights, 11,000 sf; Garden Gate, 6,105 sf; 27 S. First St., 5,100 sf; The Pierce, 4,300 sf; 439 S. Fourth, 4,300 sf; SparQ, 3,000 sf; Donner Lofts, 2,700 sf; North San Pedro Tower, 2,000 sf; 1,500 sf; Davidson Plaza Towers, 10,254 sf.
28 N. First St., Suite 1000
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 279-1775