SAN JOSE — A trio of housing high-rises — including one in the shape of a cylinder — could become an eye-catching addition to the San Jose skyline and produce more than 1,000 residential units, new plans show.
The proposed development would include 1,147 residential units and sprout in downtown San Jose’s trendy SoFA district, according to documents on file with city officials. The three towers would be 30 stories and soar to a height of as much as 301 feet, the proposal states.
Canada-based Westbank, a developer with a global reach, and San Jose-based Urban Community, a development firm headed up by Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga, have teamed up on the project.
The high-rises would be built on what’s known as the Valley Title site at 300 South First St. and 345 South Second St., with an additional frontage on East San Carlos Street.
The proposal represents a pivot for Westbank and Urban Community, which had originally proposed office towers on the site at a time when the Bay Area office market was still robust before the onset of the coronavirus outbreak.
In the wake of workplace measures put in place because of COVID, tech companies and other corporations have dramatically curbed their enthusiasm to occupy office spaces. As a result, developers have proposed nearly no new office projects unless a tenant had already signed a deal to lease or buy the property ahead of its.
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In other instances, developers have scrapped their office projects and replaced them with proposals for new housing, such as the Westbank and Urban Community high-rise proposal.
In addition to housing, the development on the Valley Title site would include 18,400 square feet of retail space and 8,700 square feet of residential amenities such as a ground-floor courtyard and gym, the project plans show.
The existing three-story office building totaling 58,400 square feet at the corner of South First and East San Carlos streets would be demolished and replaced by the new towers.
Westbank and Urban Community are also keeping an option of developing two office and retail towers on the site. These 20-story high-rises would total 1.32 million square feet of space. This version would include 60,400 square feet of ground-level retail or community-serving spaces.
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The proposal for the housing high-rises is now going through the San Jose city review process. It wasn’t immediately clear how long it might take for municipal officials to give final approval to the towers.
Westbank didn’t offer a potential timeline for development or the original office project.
The developer has proposed several large projects in downtown San Jose consisting of both office towers and housing high-rises. These projects are all slated to materialize on sites that Westbank bought in recent years. However, none have broken ground.
Westbank’s primary construction activity in downtown San Jose is the company’s renovation and upgrade of the Bank of Italy historic tower at 12 South First St.
The development firm has launched a top-to-bottom revamp of the scores of offices inside the old tower so the workspaces could be converted into housing units. It’s unknown when this redevelopment will be completed.
Despite a fever-pitch level of demand for housing in the Bay Area, a need that is particularly acute in the South Bay, developers have sometimes struggled to launch construction on major projects.
That’s because a combination of high interest rates and persistently elevated costs for labor and materials due to inflation have made new construction more expensive.
