SAN JOSE — In a bid to get San Jose’s final blessings on its broad downtown vision, Google has offered to pony up $200 million in community benefits as part of its plans to build a transit-oriented village where as many as 20,000 people could work.
The proposal includes money for anti-displacement efforts and affordable housing, two urgent concerns that have galvanized the community. Some previous critics of the project said the new proposal is a significant step forward.
“While working in collaboration with the city and our community to transform our western downtown into a vibrant urban village, Google has also crafted a new national model for transforming the relationship between tech and the surrounding community,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said in an interview.
Google has proposed the development of a transit-oriented neighborhood near the Diridon train station and SAP Center that would include office buildings, homes, shops, restaurants, activity hubs, cultural centers, hotel facilities, and open spaces.
The details released Tuesday mark the first time the Mountain View-based search giant has outlined specific efforts it will undertake for the community, after months of closed-door negotiations with the city, including:
— 1,000 affordable homes that Google would pay to build on company-owned land within the San Jose project. Additional affordable homes would be funded through special fees paid by the search giant or by Google providing the land for housing development at sites near the transit village.
— A $150 million community fund that would include programs to preserve affordable housing and fight homelessness. Also included are homeless services, education initiatives, workforce development and programs for small-business resilience and entrepreneurship.
— A 30% local hire goal for on-site construction, and a commitment to paying state prevailing wages to all on-site construction workers.
— Onsite field trips, career days and computer science workshops for students from underserved communities who have an interest in technology and technology-based careers. These would be offered once Downtown West is opened.
The remaining $50 million in the fund would be spread throughout these other efforts, including local hiring, career exploration, and awarding design and construction contracts for the office buildings to local, small and diverse businesses.
The funding package is “a major component for the city and for the community” to address concerns about the project’s causing displacement and exacerbating the housing crisis, San Jose Councilmember Raul Peralez said.
The city will turn to community leaders for help in distributing the funding.
“By putting $150 million and real decision-making power in the hands of grassroots leaders in neighborhoods at risk of displacement, this project sets a new model for how tech development can keep families housed and lift the quality of blue-collar jobs,” said Maria Noel Fernandez, campaign director with Silicon Valley Rising, an umbrella organization of community groups.
“City staff and Google did a really great job at trying to balance our immediate needs with our future needs,” City Councilmember Dev Davis said.
The community benefits package is in addition to $250 million in public benefits such as park fees and transportation improvements that the city mandates, Liccardo said.
Separate from the community benefits package, Google estimates the value to the city of other features in the project will be at least $1 billion. Among these benefits are a more walkable, connected city with multiple modes of transportation and transit, cutting-edge infrastructure upgrades, 15 acres of new parks and open spaces, onsite solar generation in Downtown West, no increases in greenhouse emissions, and widescale use of recycled water.
“The Downtown West project is the cornerstone to all development that will occur in the broader Diridon Station Area,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, and a representative of the Diridon Area Neighborhood Group, or DANG. “DANG appreciates Google’s willingness to work with neighbors.”
Google also will preserve several historically significant buildings and structures, including the historic San Jose Water Co. building, the century-old Kearney Pattern Works and Foundry building, and the “dancing pig” sign that is part of the former Stephen’s Meat Products site.
“Every major US city would flip and subsidize heavily to get a jobs-housing generating development like this,” said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial, a real estate firm. “We are very lucky to have a generous Google in our midst. Everyone should walk that neighborhood to see how underutilized it currently is.”
The tech titan says that it hopes to break ground on the first new buildings in 2023 and that it is aiming to launch construction of streets and other crucial infrastructure in 2022 if the city approves a project that will reshape a wide section of downtown.
The San Jose City Council is expected to make a final decision on the development agreement by late May.
“Right now, what you have in that area is the Shark Tank, the train station, a collection of old industrial buildings, some businesses, and homes,” said Scott Knies, executive director with the San Jose Downtown Association.
“Downtown West is going to be a new community,” Knies said. “It will not be a walled-off spaceship. It will be part of the streets, it will provide open space, housing, transit, nature areas. This is the way a city is supposed to work.”
Yet even beyond the game-changing development aspects, city officials suggested that the community benefits are of the type that hasn’t been seen in connection with a project in San Jose.
“Google’s commitment to build thousands of units of housing and to ensure a quarter of them will be rent-restricted to enable real affordability is as concrete of a commitment as we have ever seen from a major employer wishing to expand its footprint in a city,” Liccardo said.
