What Google can bring to downtown SJ

Editorial

We are trying not to count our chickens just yet, as the Google plan for a campus in downtown San Jose has not precisely hatched. But we can’t help giving a quick, hopeful cheer — and not just for the 15,000 to 20,000 jobs Google could bring to the city.

Besides its roaring growth, Google is known for something in short supply in San Jose: imaginative architecture. The urban iteration of a GooglePlex with parks, stores and restaurants mixed in could bring that elusive essence — character — to a downtown whose newer buildings, with a few exceptions, are devoid of it.

Mayor Sam Liccardo, other city officials and local business leaders announced the plan Tuesday, providing context to recent rumors and reports of developers and investors snapping up land near Diridon Station. If the Google plan comes about, everything in that part of town will soar in value.

The city is expected to negotiate exclusively with Google to sell city and former Redevelopment Agency land in the 245acre area, which once was planned as a ballpark for the As.

Big plans for downtown come and go, but the fanfare around this indicates a healthy degree of commitment. The announcement was an interesting convergence with Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference), back in San Jose for the first time since 2002. Let’s hope it’s a trend.

Adobe Systems was the pioneer technology company downtown, building two high rises in the 1990s and offering 2,400 jobs. We hoped others would quickly follow, but tech remained enamored of more sprawling campuses between San Jose and San Francisco downtowns.

Then the tech presence in San Francisco grew — millennials love it there — and companies snapped up land near Caltrain stations all along the Peninsula. The Diridon Station area, with light rail, Amtrak and the soon-to-be electrified Caltrain line, was an obvious next step, especially with BART and possibly highspeed rail on the way.

Thousands of high-rise apartments and condos recently have opened or are under construction within walking distance. San Jose’s economic development department under Kim Walesh has worked with the Knight Foundation and arts groups to nourish a downtown arts and cultural scene, dining and social hubs to appeal to companies with young employees.

Shared work spaces like WeWork and NextSpace have been growing. Amazon is moving its Lab126 research and development unit into at least one floor of WeWork’s space in the Towers@2nd complex at Santa Clara Street.

All of this raises hopes for a stronger downtown identity and sustainable economy.

The addition of a large Google transit village could be what pulls it all together.

We’re still not counting our chickens, of course. We’ve been there before. But we’re keeping a hopeful eye on those eggs.