San Jose Development Projects

The SJ Economy blog has released a slick interactive map showcasing major development projects in the area. The map was developed along with the City of San Jose's Public Works GIS team.

The number and scope of projects in the pipeline right have to be an all-time high. We're talking tens of millions of SQFT of development. When using the interactive map, don't forget to use the tabs to see ALL of the projects.

Check out the map over here.

Verizon bringing 3,400 employees to San Jose

San Jose's Coleman Highline looks like it will be fully leased before construction is over. Verizon Communications will join Roku in leasing generous amounts of space at the property. Verizon is grabbing 640,000 SQFT across multiple buildings, which is enough for 3,400 employees. 2,400 of those will be coming from an existing campus in Sunnyvale.

Coleman Highline will eventually have 1.75 million SQFT of space across eight office buildings, two hotels, and retail spaces. Project completion is scheduled for 2021.

Source: SVBJ

Santana West breaks ground on 350,000 SQFT office building

Now that Santana Row is wrapping up its final building, Federal Realty is setting their sights across the street with a new project called Santana West. The first phase officially broke ground last week and consists of an eight-story, 360,000 SQFT office building and a 1,750 space parking structure. Also, by breaking ground I mean there is already active construction on the site--it was not just a formality.

Federal Realty is trying to lease the whole building to a single tenant but is building Santana West speculatively without a tenant in tow. If all goes well, there are two additional phases that will bring the project to one million SQFT.

Unlike Santana Row, this is not a mixed-use development. In fact, there is no retail component at all--not even a coffee shop. The only likely public amenity in the project is the re-purposing of the Century 21 dome. This might seem like a missed opportunity, but two of the most successful retail projects in the United States are just across the street.

If everything goes according to plan, the building will be ready for occupancy in Q1 2021, less than two years from today.

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.

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

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

Roku snaps up another 162,557 SQFT of San Jose office space

Roku, the popular video streaming tech company, is moving their headquarters from Los Gatos to a much larger space in San Jose's Coleman Highline. Currently they sublease 160,000 SQFT from Netflix, one of their initial investors. The new campus in San Jose will clock in at 735,000 SQFT across five buildings.

Roku has brown from 400 people at the end of 2015 to 1,111 employees just three years later at the end of 2018. That will make the company one of the top employers in the Downtown or Airport areas. Getting the HQ for another fast growing tech company represents a big win for San Jose.

The Coleman Highline is also planning further expansion to a grand total of 1.5 million SQFT along with two new hotels.

Source: SVBJ

BlueJeans moves HQ to San Jose

The popular video conferencing company BlueJeans is moving from Mountain View to the posh Santana Row flagship building at the very end of the row. They are upgrading from a 24,000 SQFT space to 40,000 SQFT in the same area where Splunk is headquartered. In fact, BlueJeans may have to bump up their salaries to keep their neighbor from poaching talent--Splunk has the highest median salary of any large company in the US.

It is an interesting move considering that their key competitor, Zoom, is also located in San Jose (Downtown). A few weeks ago Zoom became the must successful IPO of 2019 and the company is now worth over $16 billion. BlueJeans is smaller player but was worth $728 million four years ago during their last funding round. Who knows, they could be the next epic San Jose IPO.

Source: SVBJ

Santana Row opens new public plaza and 1,300 space garage

The capstone project at the very end of Santana Row is nearing completion, and two very important components of that project have just opened. First, a new 21,000 SQFT signature plaza is now open to the public. It features fountains, benches, a re-planted oak tree, and the beautiful landscaping Santana Row is known for. When the building is complete, there will be new retail stores wrapping around the plaza as well.

The second component is a much-needed 1,300 space parking lot, just north of the plaza. This should make parking at the Row much easier during those busy summer months.

Another nice perk of the garage is 50 (!) new EV parking stations, bringing the grand total to 134 at Santana Row. San Jose has one of the highest concentration of electric car owners in the world, so this is greatly appreciated.

Santana Row was the site of the very first Tesla store and there is a new amenity that I didn't really see announced anywhere. Last year, there were 0 Tesla Superchargers in San Jose. These are highly coveted since they charge 3 to 10 times faster than normal chargers. Today, there is not one but two Supercharger stations at Santana Row with a total of 36 stalls, making it one of the largest Tesla stations anywhere. Based on the press release for the new garage, they may get 25 more stalls in the near future since 61 Tesla stalls are referenced.

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

Adobe is planning to break ground on Tower #4 this year

Adobe is prepping a 18-story office tower that would be the largest office high-rise in San Jose. At 700,000 SQFT, it is essentially three traditional towers merged into one. The massive building could house up to 4,000 Adobe employees.

One unique feature will be a giant pedestrian bridge over San Fernando Street that will connect it to the three existing Adobe towers.The shiny glass building will also have four levels of parking above ground as well as some underground parking.

The current Adobe campus is a bit of a walled garden. Location wise, this sits a little bit closer to central Downtown, so hopefully employees will make it out to Santa Clara Street and San Pedro Square to help bolster local restaurants and businesses.

Source: SVBJ

Airbnb coming to Downtown San Jose

Another popular Bay Area company is making San Jose their home away from home. Airbnb is opening their first Silicon Valley office at 333 W. San Carlos Street. In an appropriate move for a sharing economy company, they are taking up about 50 seats from the 1,344 desks WeWork offers in the building. However, Airbnb is looking for a more permanent South Bay location in 2020, which hopefully won't be far from this office.

For more info, click the source link below!

Source: SVBJ

Google buys a North San Jose office building for $155M

Google's first campus in San Jose may not be what you expect. Yes, they have been working for ages on a transit-oriented urban campus centered around Diridon Station in Downtown San Jose. That campus will eventually house tens of thousands of employees across a staggering 8 million SQFT of office space. However, one of their first forays into San Jose is going to be a bit more modest than that.

Google has just acquired two office buildings in North San Jose at 4300 and 4400 North First Street. The buildings are just north of Highway 237, which I would consider to be Alviso.

The buildings are partially occupied by Harmonic and Compstak and have recently been renovated. The leases expire in 2020, which is only a little over a year away. Their intentions for the buildings are not yet clear, but this seems like an obvious extension of their Mountain View campus, which is only 8 miles away by car or a 45 minute bike ride away.

Source: SVBJ

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

San Jose approves a 1 million SQFT office complex near Diridon

"Platform 16" is going to be one of the largest office developments in San Jose history. It will of course be dwarfed by Google's 8 million SQFT campus, but for now this is the largest project we have in queue.

The project will have three buildings: one would be 157,000 SQFT, another would be 367,000 SQFT, and the last one would clock in near 500,000 SQFT. Floor plates will be massive, ranging from 27,000 to 90,000 SQFT, and there is 15 feet between floors which should allow for very tall ceilings. Each floor also will have its own private terrace.

Parking would be a four-story underground structure with 2,264 parking spaces. This is a short walk or bike ride away from Diridon and the Downtown core, so hopefully a lot of people will choose alternative transit to work by the time this is complete in 2021.

Barring any major economic shift in the next few years, Downtown's future outlook is looking quite bright.

Source: SVBJ

Splunk signs lease for the entire flagship (and final) Santana Row building

Santana Row has come a long way in the past 15 years. It is now an internationally recognized destination that has become a model for mixed used projects everywhere. 700 Santana Row is the last major development project to complete the original vision for the street. Future building will likely go across Winchester, where Federal Realty is planning a near 1 million SQFT office project at the former site of the Century dome theaters.

Splunk, which already has a massive amount of space at Santana Row, has agreed to take on another 300,000 SQFT at the new building. This will bring their total presence to 535,000 SQFT and put the bulk of the company in San Jose as opposed to SF.

The capstone building at the end of Santana Row will be ready for full occupancy by 2019, but the first 3 floors will be in use this October while the rest of the building is still under construction. The project will also add 1,300 new parking spaces and 30,000 SQFT of retail.

Source: SVBJ

WeWork opens second Downtown San Jose location

The coworking industry is still picking up steam. One of the market leaders, WeWork, already has several spaces in Silicon Valley including a 75,000 SQFT Downtown San Jose location at 75 E. Santa Clara Street. That location already has 1,382 desks, but apparently that is not enough.

By the end of the year WeWork is opening a new 72,167 SQFT location at 333 W. San Carlos Street, also known as Riverpark Towers. The second location will have 1,344 desks across four floors of the building.

Coworking primarily (but not exclusively) benefits small business and entrepreneurs. As these companies grow there will be increased demand for more office space in San Jose, hopefully helping offset our jobs and housing imbalance. A second WeWork location is a very positive sign for our central business district.

Source: SVBJ

New two-story office and restaurant project Downtown

If you are an urbanist, you are probably already freaking out with the headline of a new two-story building in the most dense part of San Jose. However, it will make more sense when you look at the photo down below and see where it is being built.

Storm Land Company is planning to build a 34.5 foot-tall building at the corner of Santa Clara Street and North Almaden Avenue. You might remember this as the patio for the Mmoon or the exterior staircase for the SVG Innovation Center. It is a small sliver of land connected to a historic building, so there are severe limitation on what can be developed here.

The plan is to have a new full-service restaurant on the ground floor that would potentially sell alcohol and stay open until 2am. The second floor would be used for corporate offices. It could actually a pretty neat infill project that would better utilize the space. I love the outdoor seating, but perhaps they could use accordion or roll-up doors to open up the restaurant to the street (similar to Olla Cocina).

Source: SVBJ

Okta doubling San Jose workforce

As a sign that smaller tech companies can also thrive in San Jose, Okta is doubling their footprint and workforce Downtown. Last year SF-based Okta decided to build a second headquarters in Downtown San Jose at River Park Tower I. The original idea was to attract talent regardless of where they live in the Bay Area (Splunk had as similar approach when they opened a Santana Row office). The results have been strong enough that they are adding another 125 jobs across a whole second floor in River Park Tower I--and may expand more in the future.

With abundant housing and transit options, Downtown is quickly becoming the hottest market for tech companies wanting to get into the South Bay.

Source: SVBJ