Key downtown housing tower site could land on sales block
SAN JOSE >> A choice site in downtown San Jose where two towers could add more than 700 homes might land on the sales block after the project’s developer allowed a key permit to expire.
The property is the former Greyhound bus stop at 70 S. Almaden Ave., where Z & L Properties has proposed two residential towers that would replace the shuttered terminal.
Z & L Properties, a Chinabased developer with a Foster City office, has for years been eyeing a project at the site with 708 residences and ground floor retail. But the developer has allowed an essential permit called a tentative map to lapse, a stumble that creates an impediment.
“Yes, the map has expired,” said Nanci Klein, San Jose’s director of economic development. “They have to redo the map.”
The San Jose City Council unanimously approved the tentative map in 2017 and gave its go-ahead for a 24-story tower, a 23-story tower and retail totaling 14,000 square feet near the corner of South Almaden Avenue and Post Street.
It is one of several downtown projects that Z & L Properties has proposed. The furthest along is 188 W. St. James, a doubletower residential complex with 650 units. But 188 W. St. James appears, according to construction experts, to have taken at least a year — possibly years — longer to build than typical.
“Currently, Z & L is focused on completing the east tower of 188 West St. James, aiming to complete this project by the end of this year,” the company said in an email released by Sam Singer, the developer’s public relations representative.
Z & L Properties has begun selling more than 300 condominiums in the western tower on the corner of West St. James Street and Terraine Street. The uncompleted eastern tower is at the corner of West St. James Street and North San Pedro Street.
In May 2021, a real estate alliance of international developer Westbank and South Bay developer Gary Dillabough teamed up with San Jose developers Tony Arreola and Mark Lazzarini to buy from Z & L Properties a vacant parcel near the corner of Terraine Street and Bassett Street in downtown’s North San Pedro district. Z & L had intended to build 313 residential units on the property. Eventually, Z & L agreed to sell after the company had tumbled into a default on its development agreement with the city to build the homes. The Westbank and Dillabough group paid $11.4 million for the site.
At least two development groups that in recent years have become very active in acquiring sites downtown have begun to pursue a purchase of the Greyhound site, real estate sources say.
“Z & L has not made a final decision on whether to develop or sell the Greyhound property,” Singer said, adding that the company is “open to accepting offers.”
The Greyhound property is deemed an important piece in efforts to revitalize downtown San Jose, section by section, according to Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy.
“Sites like Greyhound are too important to be landbanked for the next several decades,” Staedler said. “We need to build out downtown to the best extent possible.”