Positive thoughts despite Google timeline
Business owners react to tech giant's reassessment of its downtown project
The steady patronage of San Jose's tech workers with empty stomachs and deep pockets had always been a reliable source of cash for San Pedro Square Market's restaurants and bars.
But on Feb. 14, as market workers swept floors, fired up grills and prepared to serve the day's hungry customers, a sense of uncertainty hovered over the complex in the wake of Google's stunning announcement that it was reassessing its timeline for Downtown West. The marquee project was set to transform the neighborhood surrounding Diridon station and SAP Center with office buildings, homes, shops and restaurants — reviving an area already hit hard by the pandemic and work-fromhome trends.
Now businesses that depend on a tech worker's lunch breaks, after-work happy hour cocktails or lucrative catering orders see a hazy future ahead, if the project is delayed, downsized or — in a worst-case scenario — canceled.
“We were hoping that it would bring in more foot traffic to the area,” said Miguel Gonzalez, general manager of San Pedro Square Market's restaurants and bars. “We're hoping we can continue and get through the way we've been going.”
Google said it still remains committed to the project, expected to employ 25,000 people. The tech giant's decision to reassess the project comes as the company makes big adjustments to its workforce and real estate portfolio, announcing in recent days that it is cutting 6% of the company's employees, 1,600 of those in the Bay Area.
Google previously has stated that it will break ground on Downtown West by the end of the year. When completed, it would take up 80 acres and include 7.3 million square feet of office space, 4,000 residential units, half a million square feet of retail space, 300 hotel rooms and about 11 football fields of open space. The project is expected to take more than a decade to finish.
“We're working to ensure our real estate investments match the future needs of our hybrid workforce, our business and our communities,” Google's Downtown West Development Director Sheela Jivan said Feb. 13.
On Feb. 14, the downtown area where businesses and residents hope Google will still make its mark was a mixture of vitality and blight.
Restaurants and bars opened their doors for visiting office workers and residents, but many empty storefronts still dot the area. And pandemic-era messages about resiliency in the face of difficulties remain visible. A shuttered cafe had “Tough times, tougher people” painted on its exterior window, and a nearby office building had a similar message: “Stay strong San Jose.”
For Ivette Velez, whose family-owned vintage clothing business on First Street has existed for over a century, Google is a makeit-or-break-it moment for
the city's downtown neighborhood.
Google's project “would probably make the business better,” said Velez while standing inside her shop, Hammer and Lewis Clothiers. “The downtown needs to be built up.”
Even so, Velez isn't too concerned, noting that oldtimers are her shop's mainstay. But she acknowledged
downtown could certainly suffer if the project's plans are delayed or go sideways. “It can't go on with empty businesses,” she said. “It doesn't make any sense. Why would it be downtown if it is going to be empty? It'd be like a little Sacramento town then, so they need to fill it up.”
For some business owners, Google doesn't necessarily
play into their success.
Victor Le, co-owner of the Vietnamese-thai fusion restaurant On a Roll in San Pedro Square Market, pointed out that the tech giant offers its workers free meals. He's even been a beneficiary of the perk; a security guard from Google once gave him a chocolate bar from the company's snack bar.
“Google employees don't eat out,” he said. “They have their own cafeteria and their own chefs. Everything is free, so you wouldn't go out (of the office) and support me.” Le, however, said he supports the project overall.
For others, such as fitness studio co-owner David Heindel, there's reason to be optimistic about downtown's future. His business has experienced a major uptick in the last couple of months. And the most important infrastructure to keep it alive isn't Google, said Heindel, but the $9.3 billion transit megaproject that is set for the area. San Jose's Diridon station has been described as the future “Grand Central Station of the West” because it would link BART, Caltrain and high-speed rail in the heart of Google's transitrich neighborhood.
“Our focus is on the immediate rather than the long term,” Heindel said. “Our customers come in every day. There isn't a Google customer coming in tomorrow even if they slow down the project. Google is a big company. I've seen these things go up and down in the past dot-com boom and bust. Things slow down.”
Former Mayor Sam Liccardo, a major proponent of the Google project since its inception, agreed with Heindel. In a statement, he said the tech company's investment in affordable housing “speaks volumes” to its commitment to the area.
He wrote, “It's not surprising that even Google's pace of development remains subject to the same economic laws of gravity as apply universally.”