Student Housing tower at 100 North 4th Street moving forward to environmental review

Another Downtown San Jose high-rise is getting closer to becoming reality. A 23-story tower designed for student housing near San Jose State University has published its initial environmental study. 

The tower would have 1,424 beds, which means another 1,424 people in Downtown San Jose right behind MIRO and City Hall. Units are split between 147 two-bedrooms, 105 three-bedrooms, and 78 four-bedrooms. Each apartment has one bathroom for every bedroom.

100 North 4th is 270 feet tall and comes in at 703,360 SQFT. There is a retail component, but it is just a single 8,420 SQFT space, which is quite large for an undivided unit. It would accommodate a restaurant the size of Rollati, but I imagine it would be something student-focused.

There is also 21,900 SQFT of common open space (including homework rooms every other floor), and a four-story podium parking garage for 287 cars and 426 bicycles.

While targeted towards students, they cannot restrict who occupies the building similar to The Grad. This type of project can be a really great value for young people that are just starting out in their careers. The apartments are furnished and include most utilities. You can also likely get by without a car in Downtown San Jose. 

These co-living upscale dorm projects are rare in San Jose but I hope we see more of them. It's one possible solution for adding large amounts of low-cost(ish) housing in our urban core and it happens to be a couple blocks away from a future BART station.

Source: SF YIMBY

A look inside Adobe's 4th Tower

Adobe was the first large tech company to be headquartered in Downtown San Jose. What started out as one tower eventually became an urban campus of three high-rises with some cool amenities like hidden a basketball court in the middle of them. Now there is a fourth Adobe tower to rule them all that is roughly the same size as the previous three combined. It also has a museum that is publicly accessible!

The Mercury News has a sneak peek inside the shiny new tower. From Highway 87 it's almost an optical illusion where it looks like a mid-rise building, but it's 18 stories and has 700,000 SQFT of office space with a bridge to connect it to the other three towers.

Inside, areas are color-coded based on function and local artists have left their mark on the new tower. There is a 50,000 SQFT cafe with cuisines from all over the world, both a perk and curse since Adobe employees should go out and also discover the amazing multi-cultural cuisines in Downtown San Jose.

I have a friend that works at Adobe so hopefully I'll go get my own photos at some point in the future. For now, check out the source link for a look inside one of San Jose's newest towers.

Source: The Merc

List of major Downtown San Jose projects under development

After many years of relatively generic proposals for Downtown San Jose throughout the early 2000s and 2010s, we are starting to see some bolder proposals that better reflect the diversity and uniqueness of Silicon Valley. 

I especially love projects that combine historic buildings with newer elements above or beside the original building, like what Bayview Development is doing at 150 E. Santa Clara.

For more details on each of these projects, hit the source link below.

Source: SVBJ

33 S. Montgomery St. (1.2 million SQF office, retail, and restaurants)

150 E. Santa Clara (75,285 SQFT Office + Retail)

The Terraine (319-unit residential, 12,263 SQFT of retail)

The Mark (Housing for 1,000 students)

Woz Way (1 million SQFT office, 10,100 SQFT retail)

25-story apartment tower proposed for Downtown San Jose

An environmental impact report was filed recently for an infill high rise building at 439 South 4th Street. The property is only half an acre and currently has an aging three-story apartment building and detached single family home.

The proposed tower is 274-feet tall, 25-stories, and will have 1,500 SQFT of retail and five stories of parking. The parking will take up the majority of the basement and first four floors and allow for 168 cars and 70 bicycles.

Most of the 210 apartments appear to be three bedrooms, so they are likely targeting SJSU students similar to The Grad. There also appears to be a community room, dog park, fitness center, and pool deck.

If this moves forward, construction will take about two years after groundbreaking.

Source: SF YIMBY

San Jose's secret hotel

There is a secret hotel hiding in plain sight right across from City Hall. It's called the WhyHotel by Placemakr and it takes up a chunk of MIRO Towers. I believe at some point MIRO struggled to lease all of their apartments, so they partnered with Placemakr to create sort of a hybrid between a hotel and Airbnb.

Since these are technically luxury apartments, all rooms have kitchens and are at least 592 SQFT. The largest room is a 2 bedroom 2 bath for up to 4 people at 1,227 SQFT. Prices are generally the same or less than hotels in the area but you get a ton more space and the convenience of a kitchen and in-unit laundry. 

I'm not aware of any hotels Downtown that have two-bedroom suites as a readily available option (outside of some rare and very expensive Presidential suites). So if you are staying with a larger group of family and friends and don't want multiple rooms, this is likely your best option. If you're curious about what it would be like to live in Downtown San Jose, it's also a nice way to do a test run for a week or so.

Some other perks include a modern fitness center, yoga studio, and private dog park. I'm not sure how long this hotel will be around, so if you're interested here is the link.

New housing tower to replace local San Jose market and taqueria

A new housing tower is proposed on the periphery of Downtown San Jose at 101 Delmas Avenue. At 11-stories it just barely qualifies as a high-rise, but given the narrow size of the building it will likely look taller than it actually is.

The ground floor will primarily be retail, which is great considering it will replace the Delmas Market and Imperio Tacqueria. At 1,300 SQFT, the new retail space it should be able to accommodate a small restaurant.

Above the retail will be 80 units, 16 of which will be affordable housing. All of the units will be studios, which is an interesting choice. Likely this will appeal to younger people without kids that want easy access to urban amenities and public transit. If the Google project ever gets built, it will also be right next door.

Source: The Merc

"NUDES" designed a rainwater harvesting tower for San Jose

A company called NUDES created an insane looking concept for the Guadalupe River Park. This was one of the design competition entries for Urban Confluence's project to bring a new landmark to San Jose.

The general idea is that the 200ft tower would catch and transport water into a shallow rainwater harvesting pool which would also somehow be connected to the neighboring Guadalupe River. It would also serve as a public space and event venue focused around water conservation and climate change.

While the chances of this coming to fruition are close to nil, it's a great example of how you can create a stunning structure while staying within San Jose's height requirements do to the airport.

Source: Jawz, Designboom

The Future of the Bay is San Jose

Nabr is building a sustainable, contemporary Scandinavian high-rises in Downtown San Jose's SoFA district and they have produced several articles that highlight just how walkable the area is. I think they nailed it (I visit most of the places mentioned frequently).

Click here to read "The Future of the Bay is San Jose"

Then follow it up with "72 Hours in San Jose, CA"

If you might be interested in their unique rent-to-own apartments, then I have one more link for you over here.

Unique office and housing tower could transform Downtown skyline

The word iconic gets thrown out a lot, but there is a proposal at 35 S. Second St. whose design would truly be iconic for the Downtown San Jose skyline. "Energy Hub" is a curvy office and residential tower that features multiple cutouts for trees and plants--not to mention a full living roof. Have a look at the second and third renders below to see how this concept looks in the context of other Downtown buildings. The change would be pretty dramatic.

The tower is actually two connected buildings that rise 21 floors. Retail and restaurants wrap around the ground floor, followed by residential space across 10 floors (194 units total), and topped with 314,000 SQFT of office space. There is also an atrium-like urban room on the ground floor accessible to the public. 

The roof is essentially a giant park with amenities for both residents and office workers. There are trees, hills, lounge areas, places to picnic, and even an full-blown running track. It has to be one of the most unique amenities proposed for the roof of any Downtown building (hopefully there is a pool or lake up there as well).

This proposal goes to show you don't have to have height in order to make a project stand out and change the entire landscape of an urban neighborhood.

Source: The Merc

Google Mega Campus Updates

Google has received unanimous approval from the planning commission to build its massive campus around Diridon. The final step is City Council approval on May 25th, which is all but assured at this point. 

The overall scope of the is staggering--it's the largest proposal in history for Downtown and perhaps all of Silicon Valley. The first phase alone includes 4.17 million SQFT of office space, 3,130 homes, and several new community plazas. That phase is just HALF of the project. Even more impressive, developers will get the opportunity to build up to 6.4 million SQFT of office space, 7,000 housing units, and 536,000 SQFT of retail around Google's project. Collectively, the area will be called "Downtown West."

Building heights will range from 170 feet o 295 feet. Construction on city streets and infrastructure is slated for 2022 and will take until at least until 2031 to complete the entire project. When complete, this will be Google's largest campus in the world.

As a side note, Google has also promised $200M in community benefits if the Downtown West plan comes to fruition. This includes homeless services, job opportunities for local residents, five acres of new parks and trails available to all, and affordable housing.

Sources: SVBJ, SVBJ(2), Urban Catalyst

High-rise residential village proposed for Five Wounds neighborhood

The first big new development proposal of 2021 is actually outside of Downtown San Jose. A seven-building project called Vila de Camila would rise just a couple blocks away from the proposed BART station behind Five Wounds Portuguese National Church.

With a mix of 942 residences and office space across 3 acres, this would be one of the most dense projects in San Jose. Most buildings would be 16-stories tall with one seven-story building. There is even a potential expansion with four more towers that would result in between 1,200 and 1,300 residential units.

This may be a longshot as several amendments to the general plan would be required--including raising building heights, density, and widening the urban village boundary. However, this is exactly the type of projected needed close to mass transit like BART that will help San Jose grow in a sustainable way.

Source: SVBJ

Future Downtown Skyline

The Downtown San Jose skyline is going to look quite a bit different in just a few years. The impag below captures less than half of Downtown, but the four new towers in the lower left (200 Park Avenue and J.P. DiNapoli) dwarf the Adobe campus towers. In fact any one of them has similar square footage the all three Adobe towers combined. Eventually the world will go back to normal and it will be amazing to see Downtown continue to transform.

Source: Sharkcity from the San Jose Development Forum

Bank of Italy renovation will look amazing

One of San Jose's first hi-rises is about to get a stunning makeover. The iconic Bank of Italy building was the tallest hi-rise between San Francisco and Los Angeles from 1926 until 1970.

The biggest change will be exterior stairs and balconies running the whole height of the building. While this may not sound like a big deal, the options for these stairs look pretty impressive and will forever change how this building looks in the skyline (see first image below).

There will also be two podium terraces, a garden, and a new roof terrace. The ground floor will eventually house a new restaurant, café, and event venue. Again, the renders here look impressive. The entrance of the restaurant and music venue would face Fountain Alley and contribute to making the area more vibrant and lively. Fountain Alley itself is also getting a renovation (and an actual fountain) in the former Lido nightclub space.

Source: SVBJ, Bank of Italy Design Overview