Huge tech campus eyed in San Jose at Fry’s site
SAN JOSE » A huge tech campus is being contemplated at a prominent north San Jose location now occupied by a Fry’s Electronics store, a project that could potentially create millions of square feet of new offices.
The project would sprout on roughly 20 acres at 550 E. Brokaw Road, at a wellknown site that’s adjacent to Interstate 880, according to documents on file with San Jose city officials.
“A new mixed-use development of approximately 2 million square feet of office and retail or amenity” is how the project is being described in a preliminary filing that will enable the project’s developers to obtain feedback from city planners.
Roughly 2 million square feet of office space could potentially accommodate 10,000 workers.
Bay West Development has proposed the project, which would rise on a site near the corner of East Brokaw Road and Junction Avenue.
At present, the site is occupied by a Fry’s Electronics store, warehouse, and the electronics retailer’s corporate offices.
The Fry’s store has a Mayan theme and is designed to resemble parts of the Chichen Itza temple. The existing structures on the site, including the consumer electronics store, would be bulldozed, the preliminary proposal shows.
Plans on file with the city show the development would consist of seven office buildings, along with two parking structures.
The proposal has come to light as Fry’s Electronics faces a future where online shopping continues to grow in popularity, a structural shift that has jolted brickand-mortar stores.
In September 2019, a Fry’s representative said that the retailer wasn’t planning to shut down its retail operations.
Campbell-based Bay West Development isn’t the only major developer that has pondered a project on the 19.7 acres in north San Jose.
In recent months, Prologis, one of the nation’s biggest industrial builders, sought an assessment from city planners about what could be developed at the site.
Prologis was attempting to gauge whether the zoning for the site could be changed to combined industrial and commercial. Prologis didn’t file any further proposals after its original submittal.
Fry’s Electronics couldn’t be reached for comments at the company’s automated telephone line to its corporate offices. Bay West Development declined to comment. Santa Clara County property records indicate that, through an affiliate, Bay West has an ownership interest in the Fry’s parcel.
The north San Jose office campus would likely be constructed in three or four phases, according to the development proposal.
“The goal of our preliminary review is to determine the best path forward and aspirational schedule for re-zoning, environmental and entitlement review of the proposed development,” Bay West Development stated in the planning documents.