New single family housing suburb proposed for San Jose's Almaden district

If you thought single family construction was over in San Jose, guess again. Latala Homes plans to build 177 new detached homes, averaging just under 2,500 SQFT per home at 20202 Harry Road. 36 of those homes will be designated as affordable for low-income households. The site is currently an empty field so no demo work would be necessary.

Before the urbanists get up in arms, this is already as deep into the suburbs as you can possibly get. There is nothing walkable anywhere near here and there probably never will be. If you're wondering where Harry Road is, it's where Almaden Expressway literally dead-ends. That is how deep this project is into Almaden. The silver lining is you can go horseback riding or visit one of San Jose's most romantic and isolated restaurants, La Foret, with a short drive.

Based on the area, I think most of these homes will likely go for around $1,000/SQFT, so you're probably looking at a range of $2M-$3M depending on how wide the range of home sizes will be.

Source: SF YIMBY

San Jose becomes the first city in California to allow homeowners to sell ADUs

In order to solve for housing shortages, skyrocketing rents, and dizzying mortgages we have to think outside the box. San Jose just took a significant step to increase the housing supply and provide more low cost options.

San Jose already is one of the most accommodating cities when it comes to building an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) on your property. On a typical single-family lot, a homeowner can build a detached ADU up to 1,000 SQFT or an attached ADU up to 800 SQFT. Now, instead of just renting out the ADU, you can actually sell it as a condominium.

This will encourage more people to built them in their backyards and open up low-cost homeownership for more people, especially those early on in their careers. Some ADUs are quite nice, like the 500 SQFT one mentioned in the source link below.

San Jose is already receiving four times as many requests to build ADUs as San Francisco. In fact, even homebuilders like Robson Homes are including them as options for new housing projects in San Jose. 

Source: ABC7 News

Affordable homes proposed for Monterery Road in Central San Jose

240 homes will be built built on an empty lot on Monterey Road near Senter Road, 237 of which would be designated as "affordable" one-bedroom units. Amenities would include a clubhouse, laundry rooms on each level, bicycle storage, a basketball court, dog park, picnic area, and a BBQ area. The color scheme looks a lot more interesting than many affordable projects, which tend to just be beige or gray boxes.

$70.9 million of construction financing has been closed, funding a good chunk of the $119 million proposal.

Construction is expected to begin this year at 4300 Monterery Road and it will take about two years to complete the project. 

Source: The Mercury News

Unique open house in South San Jose this Saturday - 6810 Canine Court

Everyone complains about affordability in San Jose, but there are still some really interesting opportunities if you know where to look. There is a very unique townhome-style condo for sale in South San Jose in a brand new neighborhood near the intersection of 101 and 85. 

It's a massive 2,506 SQFT home with 4 oversized bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms. That makes it larger than most single family homes in San Jose, yet the listing price is only $555 a square foot.

Costco is literally across the street and several great restaurants are minutes away (I highly recommend Blossom and Bourbon). It also has great parks within the community with bocce ball, basketball, multiple playgrounds for the kids, an outdoor gym, and gated dog park. The Santa Teresa Light Rail station is a 15min walk or 4min bike ride away.

My wife is the realtor and is hosting an open house this weekend from 1-4pm on Saturday with free bubbly and an assortment of appetizers highlighting a highly-rated local San Jose eatery. Last week was Pasteleria Adega and this week it will be something new but equally as awesome. Even if you're not looking for a new home, swing on by to check out the neighborhood and talk San Jose. The address is 6810 Canine Court in San Jose.

Be one of the first 8 groups to mention The San Jose Blog and take home a bottle of either Prosecco or Rosé.

100 affordable homes proposed for Willow Glen

A project split across 520 and 544 West Alma in San Jose's Willow Glen neighborhood could bring over 100 affordable homes to San Jose. 

91 of these homes would be near the Highway 87 and Alma Avenue interchange. The first floor of the five-story building would be amenity space and parking while the apartments would span the upper four floors.

At 544 West Alma, there is an abandoned restaurant and large surface parking lot. Here developers would like to build 99 affordable apartments near the banks of the Guadalupe River. Part of the project would even include restoring areas adjacent to the Guadalupe River so that it can be integrated into the project.

Source: The Mercury News

372 apartments move forward at a former San Jose DMV site

A former DMV in central San Jose near History Park and the intersection of Senter and Tully is going to be transformed into a 372-unit apartment complex called "The Place." The apartments would be split across three seven-story buildings with a more interesting design then you would expect from your typical midrise.

The apartments themselves would range from studios to two-bedroom units with two bathrooms. 112 of the apartments will be studios, 200 are one-bedroom, and 60 are two-bedroom units.

The one-story office building that housed the DMV would be demolished to make way from this project. The neighborhood is mostly office and industrial with a Costco across the street. The best escape-games in San Jose are a couple blocks away at OMESCAPE and you also have Happy Hollow Park and Zoo, History Park, the Japanese Friendship Gardens, Kelly Park, Sharks Ice, and the San Jose Giants less than a mile away. It's actually a pretty decent area to start building dense housing.

The next step is a series of city reviews this month.

Source: The Mercury News

San Jose will get $12.7 million to build 200 tiny homes

San Jose is acquiring state funding to purchase 200 tiny homes to house a portion of our homeless population. San Jose qualified for the funding due to its record of actually building interim housing instead of just talking about it. So far San Jose has built 499 small homes and plans for 784 more beds.

San Jose already has a site selected for the new homes in North San Jose near VTA operations. The project will be named the Cerone Interim Housing Community and it is expected to open next year.

Source: Patch

How much income you need to comfortably afford a San Jose home

Imagine you have just moved your family to San Jose and want to comfortably afford the average mortgage. We're not talking about a luxury home, but your average detached tract home in a San Jose suburb. How much income would you have to make?

Are you ready? $454,296. Almost half a million dollars.

San Francisco requires less, but a still astronomical $339,864 of annual income.

This number is expected to come down in the future with interest rates, which would also increase the supply of homes for sale. In the mean time, we should be doing everything possible to increase the amount of housing available.

Source: NBC Bay Area

Former Senter Road DMV could be replaced with 372 new homes

Earlier this year the DMV at Senter Road across from Costco permanently closed its doors (it was always designed to be a temporary office). Now developer HC Investment Associates wants to construct three new buildings on that site with a total of 372 residences.

Details are scarce since this is early on in the process. It's not clear if these will be condos or apartments or if there will be an affordable housing component.

HC already has another San Jose property in development at 70-80 N. 27 St. in Little Portugal. They are replacing a two-story commercial building (Portuguese events hall) with a five-story residential building containing 198 homes.

Source: SVBJ

New San Jose mixed-use project moves forward with 1,100 homes and a Whole Foods

A massive project could be headed for a shopping center at the corner of Saratoga and Lawrence Expressway across the street from Westgate. The area would be developed into a mini-Santana Row anchored by Whole Foods. In total, it would have 1,100 residential units across several multi-story buildings sitting on top of 165,000 SQFT of retail. 

The Whole Foods would be the only single-story building on the property (to simplify financing and construction). However, that is just 43,000 SQFT of the overall project. The layout would include a retail "main street" and a new neighborhood park. 

Unlike most new projects of this scale in San Jose, there won't be an affordable housing component. Everything will be market rate. However, increasing the overall housing supply has a negative effect on prices across the board and 1,100 homes is a significant number.

Source: The Mercury News

518 new apartments in San Jose's Japantown are already 95% leased

Shea Properties and Ivanhoe Cambridge launched Sixth and Jackson luxury apartments in Japantown earlier this year, named after the cross streets where you can find the 518-unit complex. Even though it just opened pretty recently, the property is already 95% leased. This goes to show how strong the San Jose housing market is right now, even with floorplans starting at $2,656/mo for a studio and scaling to $5,200/mo for a three bedroom unit.

The project is split between two seven-story buildings with tons of amenities like a yoga room, rooftop lounge, dog run, co-working spaces, meeting rooms, a spin room, outdoor entertainment areas, Shea Properties also built a new public park between the buildings called Heinlenville Park, named after the person that helped transform the neighborhood in the late 19th century. The park will eventually have a $30 million arts incubator and community center, but construction on that project hasn't started yet.

It's quite an upgrade for Japantown, one of my favorite neighborhoods in San Jose. It's great that they were able to integrate so many community elements into the project and there is still quite a bit of retail on the ground floor available for lease to further enhance the area in the future.

Source: SVBJ

110 townhomes proposed in North San Jose at existing office site

As the office market struggles to recover, project after project has been pivoting to housing. The latest proposal is coming from SummerHill Homes and would involve replacing a two-story office building with 110 townhomes on a 5.1-acre site at 90 East Tasman Drive. 

This is a great location in the middle of the tech world's "Golden Triangle." It's in front of a VTA Light Rail stop and is a few stations away from either Levi's Stadium to the west or Milpitas BART and The Great Mall to the east.

While townhomes in many ways would certainly be an improvement over the current 1980s era office buildings at the current site, it's still a far cry from what Santa Clara is doing off of Tasman just over 1 mile away. That site is also 5-acres, but instead of townhomes it features a 23-story apartment building with 509 apartment and 191 senior housing units in a secondary tower. That is literally seven times the density of the San Jose proposal (see below).

The land here is extremely valuable. It would make sense to move a bit beyond townhomes at this point in North San Jose, especially with such great access to existing transit networks. 

Source: The Mercury News, TheRegistry

64 affordable homes coming to South San Jose

Earlier this week the San Jose City Council unanimously approved a 64-unit affordable housing project at 2388 S. Bascom Avenue near the border with Campbell. The project will replace a single-story 2,228 SQFT Kirk's Steakburgers with a 6-story building. 

63 of the 64 units would be reserved for affordable housing. The one market rate unit would be for the property's manager. 44 of the units will be two or three bedrooms while the rest will one bedroom apartments.

Source: SVBJ

New permit activity for Orchard Residential in Downtown San Jose

A 30-story apartment tower called Orchard Residential is slowly moving forward. Plans were approved last November, but some revisions were requested such as cutting car parking by half. They are hoping to receive their full building permit by fall to proceed with a pretty stunning 294-foot tall project.

The building will have 502,340 SQFT dedicated to residences, 13,860 SQFT of ground-floor retail, 104 parking spaces for cars, and 176 spaces for bicycles. The renders below are not just concepts--they are actually planning to plant 312 fruit trees and additional plants across the facade which is something more projects should consider doing.

Source: SF YIMBY, Dirk_Birkin from Skyscraper City

New housing proposed for East Capitol Expressway

Yet another housing project is being proposed near a San Jose train stop. 203 residential units and a cafe are being planned for the intersection of East Capital Expressway and Highway 87. The multi-phase project would also have an open plaza, paseo, a library, public art, and community spaces.

It's an interesting transit-oriented location across from an existing Light Rail Station and the onramp for Highway 87. Based on the renders it looks like they are planning to incorporate a bus hub into the project as well and there seems to be a plenty of room for future expansion. 

I imagine much of the Capital Expressway Auto Mall across from the freeway will be redeveloped long term, so it will be interesting to see what this neighborhood will become.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose dethrones New York as most expensive rental market

Cheers to awards we don't want to win! In June the San Jose metro became the most expensive place to rent a home in the United States--beating out both New York and San Francisco. The median rent for a typical apartment, condo, or single family home in San Jose hit a staggering $3,411 per month. This just edged out the notoriously expensive New York Metro, which came in at $3,405.

Third place on the list was also a surprise. San Diego surpassed our neighbor up north with a median rent of $3,175/mo. San Francisco was fourth at $3,168 and Boston rounded out the top five at $3,045.

Source: TheRealDeal, Discophil from Skyscraper City

San Jose gets first round of tiny homes for the homeless

Homelessness is one of Silicon Valley's top issues, and it seems to be getting worse with over 6,000 individuals living on Santa Clara County streets. Fortunately, San Jose is taking a novel approach by building inexpensive tiny homes to house the less fortunate.

The first community of tiny homes is off of Mabury Road and consists of 40 "sleeping cabins," showers, a shared kitchen, laundry, and computers. Comcast is also donating WiFi service. The community is expected to serve 120 people a year (each resident can stay up to 4 months).

A second project is already underway near Felipe Court at the intersection of 101, 280, and 680. 

It's not a perfect solution but is helping move us in the right direction. I wish developers would also build inexpensive 150-200 SQFT studio apartments to provide additional housing options for everyone.

Source: San Jose Inside

Tiny homes for the homeless

San Jose is exploring a novel way to house part of our homeless community, currently around 3,231 people. The city is working with Gensler to build 80 "tiny homes" that would cost as little as $6,500 each to build. The homes are 80 SQFT but have a bed, storage areas, and a sitting area. Each also come with heating and cooling and three windows.

The plan is to build two pilot communities that would each have 40 of these homes, along with communal areas for cooking. Bathrooms would be placed in a temporary structure.

It may not seem like much, but this would greatly help those that need it most get back on their feet--not to mention reduce the population of our "tent cities." The goal is for residents of these homes to move to permanent housing within 6 months.

This kind of out-of-the-box thinking is exactly what we need in order to make an impact. Just doing more of the same does not seem to be working. Fingers crossed that this will help ameliorate one of our key social issues.

Source: SVBJ