Housing tower moving forward
SAN JOSE >> A San Jose housing tower with hundreds of homes has received the city's approval and could sprout a few blocks from Google's proposed Downtown West transit village.
The housing high-rise would add 263 apartment homes to a site at 860 W. San Carlos St., which is a short distance from the neighborhood Google intends to develop around Diridon Station.
The project is being jointly developed by two San Jose-based real estate companies, Swenson and Republic Urban Properties, and now has received the city entitlements that are required for the project to be built.
The newly approved residential project is the third of three housing complexes near West San Carlos and Sunol streets. Two of the three projects have been built on the site, which once was a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
bus maintenance and storage yard.
The three housing developments were born in 2006 when Republic Urban and Swenson's Green Valley Corp. were selected as the preferred builders for the three-phase project. The VTA sold the land for the three phases of the development to the real estate venture.
“We were able to work with VTA to maximize the potential of this site and convert a portion of it from bare, underutilized land to much-needed housing close to transit,” said Case Swenson, president of Swenson.
The 12-story tower, which once was a 14-story high-rise but subsequently was redesigned, will include 38 studio units, 19 junior one-bedroom units, 146 regular one-bedroom units and 60 two-bedroom units, according to the Swenson company.
If three residential projects take off as anticipated, they could go a long way to create a more lively corridor along West San Carlos Street between downtown San Jose and the two megamalls to the west, Westfield Valley Fair and Santana Row.
“This will help to revitalize this area,” said Michael Van Every, president and managing partner with Republic Urban Properties. “This third phase of the development is the final major piece that fulfills the vision for the midtown area.”
The third tower also will include up to 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to the two development companies.
Swenson, the company's top executive, credited the efforts of the VTA and the city of San Jose for helping to push the project closer to a construction launch.
“These types of publicprivate initiatives can help create thousands of transit-oriented units,” Swenson said.
The proposed development still must land a construction loan, Van Every said.
“The goal is to start construction next year,” Van Every said. “We are in final design with the construction documents.”