Two massive 20-story towers proposed Downtown

KT Urban has submitted plans for Woz Way Offices, another epic office project in Downtown San Jose. It consists of a whopping 1.8 million SQFT split between two towers at 280 Woz Way. One of them is a giant wall similar to Adobe's 4th tower and looks like multiple high-rises combined together.

The project architect and designer stated that the only place in Silicon Valley where a tech company can physically scale their business and have access to transit is San Jose. Hopefully the momentum can survive the current crisis as it appears that developers are finally coming around to seeing Downtown's potential.

The project would also feature an impressive 30,000 SQFT of outdoor terraces across four floors, and 6,000 SQFT of retail (a bit light for a project this size). Parking will consist of four-levels both above and below ground, enough to handle 1,215 cars.

If all goes well, the project could break ground as early as 2021.

Source: SVBJ

Despite Covid19, new 20-story office tower proposed Downtown

I honestly didn't think we would get any new tower proposals for quite some time. I'm happy to hear developers aren't entirely scared away at this point.

J.P. DiNapoli would like to build a 20-story tower at 95 S. Almaden--also know as the parking lot next to the ugly windowless AT&T building. The tower would have retail and amenities on the ground floor, eight floors of parking (four above ground and four below) and 15 stories of offices above the parking.

This is close to two other major projects, Adobe Tower 4 and Jay Paul's CityView Plaza redevelopment. It's also a killer location with easy access to transit, housing, and attractions Downtown.

Smart developers will build ASAP while costs are low.

Source: SVBJ

Garden Gate Tower plans purchased by British developer

Scape, a London-based developer specializing in student housing, has purchased the plans for Garden Gate Tower at the tail end of the SoFA District in Downtown San Jose. The current design calls for a shiny 27-story tower with an impressive penthouse amenity floor as you can see below.

Gardent Gate Tower was slated to have 290 condos and 4,840 SQFT of retail space. However, it is possible that Scape will try to convert this into a co-living or student housing building given that is their expertise. If they make the change, they would be in good company. The Graduate already starting taking tenants and KT Urban is planning an 850-bedroom co-living tower nearby.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Development Map

The San Jose Economy blog has updated the map of new development projects in San Jose. The Sharks Ice expansion, Tribute Hotel, Garden Gate, 200 Park, Platform 16, Building 7 at Coleman Highline, and Danco Housing @ West San Carlos have been added. The planning team is reviewing development permits for more than 9,000 residential units and a staggering 15 million SQFT of office space citywide. Hopefully this will still come to fruition after the pandemic boils over.u

Most of the new project are centered around Downtown San Jose. Half of the proposed office space and 40% of the residential units are in the Downtown core. 551 hotel rooms and 86,000 SQFT of new retail are in the mix as well.

As for the projects currently under construction, you're looking at 8.7 million SQFT of office space, 1.3 million SQFT of retail, 470 hotel rooms, and 4,131 new residential units.

Check out the interactive map over here!

Downtown San Jose's epic development roadmap

I've been following Downtown San Jose development for the last 21 years, and I have never seen so many impressive projects in the pipeline--not even in the peak of the .com bubble in 1999 and 2000.

The Silicon Valley Business Journal has put together a list of the top 20 projects that are currently in the pipeline. Several are in the million+ SQFT category, which is equivalent to three or four typical high rise buildings. Even if half of these come to fruition, Downtown San Jose will never look the same.

As an added bonus, below is a recording of the "Future of San Jose" event, where you can hear several San Jose leaders share their thoughts on where San Jose is going.

Source: SVBJ

Museum Place tower moves forward

A 20-story mixed-use tower next to the Tech Interactive museum has been unanimously approved. "Museum Place" will replace Parkside Hall behind the Tech with 928,000 SQFT of new office space, 8,400 SQFT of retail, and a 60,000 SQFT expansion of the museum.

This was originally going to be a hotel and residential tower, but given the state of the market the project was converted to commercial users instead. As San Jose is the only large city in the country whose daytime population decreases, this seems like a fair change to help correct our jobs/housing imbalance (San Jose needs more jobs, other Silicon Valley cities need to step up for housing).

If all goes well, Museum Place will break ground in 2020.

Source: SVBJ

Block 2

If you liked yesterday's unique Market Street Towers renders, Sobrato has another flagship project right around the corner that we'll call "Block 2" until an official name is released. It is located on East San Fernando St. between S 1st St. and S 2nd St.

The project looks like several stacked glass Tetris pieces with multiple sky gardens between them. This would be one of the most interesting and unique buildings Downtown if it gets built.

The schematic shows new ground floor retail, which like Market Street Towers would fill a critical gap or deadzone Downtown. Currently the only thing on this piece of land is a surface parking lot.

Above the retail and lobby would be four floors of parking and 12 floors of offices. Each floor appears to have two sky gardens, which are four-story cutouts from the main building shell. Impressive!

Source: Market Street Towers

Market Street Towers

Sobrato has just release some new renders for their Market Street Towers project. The building design is iconic. I can't say that I have seen anything like this anywhere else. While it looks like four separate towers, it is actually a single 584,658 SQFT office building with floor plates as large as 51,605 SQFT.

The ground floor will have 16,372 SQFT of new retail, which fills a dead zone between the Paseo between the Fairmont buildings and San Carlos Street. Currently this is just a surface parking lot. Speaking of parking, there will be 683 parking spaces and 152 bicycle stalls, something that will also come in handy on the weekends when the offices are closed.

My favorite part of the project is the roof, which features not one but two sky gardens with over 25,000 SQFT of combined space. The views should be incredible as you can see from the 2nd and 3rd images below.

To see more photos and 360 degree views, head over to the Market Street Towers marketing site. Tomorrow we'll post renders for another Sobrato project in the area.

San Jose Development Updates

The SJ Economy Blog will start sharing a detailed update on development projects on a regular basis. The current stats are impressive.

• There are 16.22 million SQFT of office in development
• There are 7,261 residential units in planning, 5,215 units have been entitles, and 3,476 units are currently under construction (1,533 units are under construction Downtown).
• There are multiple hotels in the pipeline including a Hyatt House, Hampton Inn, Resident Inn, 24-story Tribute Hotel, and several others.

For more details head over to the source links below.

Source: SJ Economy Blog, Full development report

Miro's twin high-rise under construction across from City Hall

20-story office tower proposed for 200 Park Ave.

Developer Jay Paul Co. has picked up 200 Park Avenue, which is across from CityView Plaza in Downtown San Jose. The company is proposing a massive 850,000 SQFT building that looks pretty unique. Not much else is known about the project, which still has to go through extensive approvals.

It is wild to think that 10 years ago we couldn't get a normal office tower built, and now we are hearing about one mega-project after the other. Google may not have to build any of their own towers at this rate.

Source: SVBJ

StarCity's "co-living" tower moves forward

StarCity is working on the largest co-living project in the United States and it just received final city approvals. Co-living is like a dorm for adults. You get a small private space which typically includes a bedroom and bathroom and other facilities like the kitchen, living area, and laundry are shared between multiple residents. Generally co-living facilities are much less expensive than a typical newer apartment.

StarCity would like to build an 18-story tower with 803 co-living units at 199 Bassett Street. The location is is just three blocks away from San Pedro Square.

I would assume this will be on the higher-end of the co-living spectrum. The building will have a 5,000 SQFT gym, chef-style kitchens, bike storage, co-working areas. As an added bonus, there will be retail on the ground-floor that might include a cafe, grocery store, or bar.

If this gets built, it will immediately increase the Downtown population by a significant number and hopefully provide a more affordable living option.

Source: SVBJ

Adobe breaks ground on San Jose's largest office high-rise

Last week, Adobe broke ground on it's remarkable 4th tower in Downtown San Jose. At 1.3 million SQFT it is about as large as the existing three towers combined and will house over 4,000 employees. There will also be a new bridge over San Fernando connecting Tower 4 to the original campus

Adobe is already Downtown San Jose's largest employer, so this is a major vote of confidence for the area. If all goes well, the tower will be complete by 2022.

If this is what 4,000 employees looks like, imagine what 20,000 new Googlers will do for San Jose's core.

Source: SVBJ

Map of future Downtown San Jose projects

This collage was created nine months ago by CTA25 from the San Jose Development Forum on Skyscrapercity (yup, that's how far behind I am on the forum). While some projects already have revised designs and it is missing some of the recent megaprojects like Adobe's 4th tower and Boston Properties' insane 1.8 million SQFT proposal, this provides a pretty good perspective on just how different Downtown San Jose will look in a few years. Red lines are projects that are already well under construction.

Source: San Jose Development Forum (thanks for putting this together CTA25!)

KT Urban planning a 27-story co-living tower

KT Urban has re-unveiled "Garden Gate" tower, destined for 600 S. First Street which is close to highway 280 in the SoFA part of Downtown San Jose. The 27-story tower will be our second proposal a co-living project--think fancy dorms for adults. Residents would pay slightly lower then average rents (for new construction Downtown) and get a private bedroom adjacent to common areas like living rooms and kitchens.

Generally, buildings like this are filled to the brim with amenities. From the renders below, it even looks like they are even planning a rooftop pool and a penthouse deck/lounge.

As housing prices continue to balloon out of control, we need to think a bit outside the box. Solutions such as co-living will help diversify the housing products available and hopefully bring a little bit more affordability to San Jose. From a development perspective, bringing 1,000 residents to SoFA would be icing on the cake.

Source: SVBJ

Boston Properties proposing massive office high-rise

Last week we talked about Adobe's 4th tower, which at 700,000 SQFT is essentially three San Jose high-rises put together side-by-side. Apparently, that is only the beginning of the mega-projects proposed for Downtown. Boston Properties has a proposal that dwarfs Adobe's new building.

Many years ago Boston Properties proposed three office towers are the corner of South Almaden and Woz Way. It would have been one of the most significant projects Downtown, but the economy killed the project. Now they are resurrecting it at double the original size. Instead of three towers, they want to build one single 17-story tower with 1.8 million SQFT of office space!

To put that in perspective, in terms of square footage that would be like building five new "Knight Ridder" (now KQED) office towers or three new convention centers. This one building would have more office space than the entire Salesforce tower in San Francisco. To really put it in perspective, it would be the second largest office building on the West Coast (second to Apple Park) and the 27th largest in the world.

If this moves forward, it would turn a surface parking lot into an amazing piece of real estate that would bring something like 10,000 jobs to San Jose. Check out the photos below. All I've got left to say is, wow...

Source: SVBJ

Downtown San Jose construction time-lapse (2012 - 2018)

David Cheung has created a cool time-lapse video of Downtown San Jose construction west of Santa Clara Street. The video spans from September 2012 all to August 2018 and features construction of One South Market, Centerra, Silvery Towers, and Modera. It is only 30 seconds long and you can check it out below.

Sobrato wows with proposal for "Bock 8" Downtown

The Sobrato Organization has been sitting on a prime 1.5 acre parking lot at the corner of Market and San Carlos for eight years. This was once earmarked for a three-tower condo project that failed to get off the ground. Sobrato's proposal is single 600,160 SQFT tower designed to look like four individual buildings.

The modern glass tower would be 17 stories high with most being dedicated to office space. Thankfully, there will be 19,600 SQFT of retail on the ground floor. Parking will be on floors two through six, which also adds more Downtown parking supply for evenings and weekends.

Floor plates will reach an impressive 50,000 SQFT, perfect for tech companies. Even more interesting are two rooftop gardens. One will be on the 14th floor and span 10,400 SQFT while the other will be on the 15th floor and clock in a 12,700 SQFT. Finally, San Jose is making better use of high-rise rooftops with proposals like this--two highrise hotels in the pipeline also feature penthouses with amenities like pools, restaurants, and green space.

Currently this will be a spec project without a specific tenant in mind. There is no specific timeline for construction--let's keep our fingers crossed that this will move forward soon.

Source: SVBJ