Investors buy San Jose property after selling key Google village site

SAN JOSE >> A family trust that sold the site of a dog daycare in downtown San Jose to Google has used some of the proceeds from that transaction to buy a retail property a few miles away in the popular Willow Glen commercial district.

In May, a trust led by Ilya Neitvestny, the owner of Pawin’ Around, a nowshuttered dog daycare in downtown San Jose, sold the property for the canine care business to Google.

“Willow Glen, San Jose, that whole area, those are good locations,” Nietvestny said of the site his family trust has bought. “It’s a good property.”

In the May transaction, the Neitvestny family trust sold a building at 50 S. Montgomery St. to Google for slightly more than $4.6 million, according to Santa Clara County property documents.

Google bought the

Montgomery Street site, which is across the street from the Diridon train station, to use for some of the properties that the search giant has been assembling since December 2016 for a huge transit village.

After that deal with Google, the Neitvestny group began to cast about for one or more properties to purchase, using 1031 exchange rules.

The Neitvestny trust paid $3.6 million for the Willow Glen site, according to Santa Clara County property documents that were filed on June 1.

“This was purely an investment for the family trust,” Neitvestny said.

The Willow Glen property has addresses of 1049, 1051, and 1053 Lincoln Ave. and is near Broadway Avenue, county assessment records show.

Atelier Salon, Jen’s Cakes, and Siress Group are among the businesses listed as operating in the Willow Glen property.

The two deals also show that Google’s purchases in downtown San Jose can create beneficial impacts for real estate activity elsewhere or nearby.

“You can see some of the benefits when you get an active buyer like Google,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy.

Sellers will typically deploy their proceeds from transactions into additional realty deals or investments.

“There is an economic ripple effect that benefits San Jose and the region generally,” Staedler said.

Neitvestny said he would like to reopen his dog daycare business at some point.

“Everything crashed for our business because of COVID 19,” Neitvestny said. “We had to lay off all our people.”

Pawin’ Around operated for 15 years before it shut its doors this year. The closure had nothing to do with selling to Google, he added.

“I don’t have a new location yet,” Neitvestny said. “It’s a process. It’s hard to find a location that fits with the city’s guidelines.” But the dog daycare business won’t operate at the just-purchased Willow Glen site, he added.

Google has proposed a development of office buildings, homes, restaurants, shops, entertainment hubs, cultural centers, and open spaces where the search giant could employ up to 25,000 people in downtown San Jose.

The transit village, known as Downtown West, would sprout near the Diridon train station and the SAP Center.

“I’m a big fan of what Google has proposed,” Neitvestny said. “It’s a great idea, to have the Downtown West project. It can make downtown San Jose more of a real city. I’m a fan of that.”