Monday, May 21, 2012

1 Million Square Foot Office Campus Coming to North First

Ellis Partners is planning to build a massive Class A office campus on Orchard Parkway called 101 Tech. Currently Atmel is headquartered here in a two story building, which they are vacating in June. The plan is the renovate that building and then build 3 new 6 story buildings and a 1500 space parking garage. The total size of usable space is 956,000 sqft, making it one of the largest office developments in the Bay Area.

This location has immediate access to Light-rail, SJC, 101, and 87 and is surrounded by flagship offices for some of the largest tech companies in the world.

Source: SJBJ

Rendering



15 comments:

  1. No More office Parks!!!!!!!

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  2. I have to agree with ^^^. Please, no more office parks in San Jose, especially in this area. I thought the North First area was supposed to encourage density that was focused on urbanity, transit, and walkability? This could have been built 20 years ago. And if we MUST build an office park, can we please, at minimum, encourage an inspired design? A bunch of boxes surrounded by parking? Whoa!

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  3. I'm gonna take the other position and say that this is not so bad. What are we suppossed to do in SJ? Every other city (Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, etc) is doing the same thing i.e. developing these kinds of office parks. Absolutely true, this could have been developed 20 years ago. But maybe that says something about how little things have changed in terms of what silicon valeey companies are looking for.

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    1. Look around the property, almost every corner is vacant. Too many vacant properties, too little open space. Keep this space open!

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    2. This "space" is dry, dusty and a bit of a wasteland down by the airport (noisy a lot of the time). It's perfect for a campus like this.

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    3. If you spent time looking, you would see how important this land is to local/migrant wildlife. Golden Eagles, Hawks/falcons of all kinds, Burrowing Owls, and dozens of jack rabbits to name a few. "Dry and Dusty" doesn't mean its lifeless. We shouldn't restrict the Guadalupe River wildlands to 50ft on each side of the river. This is the only space left for them in the downtown area. If this space is gone the hazardous bird traffic will increase at the airport too.

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    4. I'm the "dry and dusty" dumbass I guess. I live around that area and I ride my mountain bike there all the time (and that includes taking the time to look around).

      I'll take your word for it about all the wildlife but I stand by my statement....it's perfect for a campus like this!

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  4. ^^^I understand and agree with you - I just have high hopes for San Jose thinking and looking like the big city that it is. I guess I can damper my selfish outlook and be happy that there's enough demand to justify construction of any kind.

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  5. I also agree that this construction is better than no construction. That said, I just wish for once that some developer/company would look to downtown SJ. Why not the 4-tower Boston Properties proposal on Almaden? If Adobe is willing to reside downtown, I'd imagine other tech companies might be as well.

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    1. Developers aren't courted by the city. The city doesn't get development. The mayor doesn't even live downtown, does he?

      It's all so ridiculous.

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    2. I believe the mayor lives in Berryessa. I live downtown where there is still some open office space, I see.
      I guess I'd rather see construction cranes in my neighborhood building residences, though. New neighbors are a lot more fun downtown than more in-and-out workers, welcome though they are, too. I guess I'll look on the bright side and hail the cranes wherever they show up.

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    3. Where the mayor lives is totally irrelevant. Am I understaning your statement...developers aren't courted by the city? Are you kidding? The city are bending over backwards to get developers to build in both the city (downtown) and along North 1st street (all that North San Jose vision stuff). They are slashing fees, expediting permit approvals etc. This is a free market capitalist economy. The city cannot force developers to do anything. Developers will do whatever will make them the most money...right now (for better or worse) that is building high-tech campus style buildings outside of downtown areas. Be grateful this is inside the city limits. I'm tired of watching all these other cities get the business while SJ provides the people. It's a no-win for SJ in that equation.

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  6. I stand by my statement that office parks are not a good idea for San Jose. We should take the initiative to nudge developers in the right direction when it comes to building efficient land use into their designs. I am not asking for the city to lose the deal, but do a proper sales process of give and get.

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  7. There are already a lot of empty offices and parking lots for lease in that area.

    SJ is already on the map for cutting edge technology...let's remember that it is one of the world's fragile biodiversity hotspots!

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  8. I too have high hopes for a dense/urban North San Jose but I think a lot of you guys have unrealistic expectations... SJ doesn't have the demand for anything higher!

    Orchard Pkwy could use a the three 6 story buildings/parking structure so that it can start to look a lot like the Qualcomm(Atheros)/Magma/Brocade cluster on Technology and Skyport.

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