Uber co-founder eyes downtown San Jose building after fitness club finds new site
Firm lead by Travis Kalanick near deal for historic store
SAN JOSE >> A realty venture led by Uber’s co-founder is in the final stages of buying a historic downtown San Jose building, according to public records and sources familiar with the deal.
Uber co-founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick’s new realty investment enterprise has obtained a contract to purchase the old Hank Coca’s Furniture store and Odd
Fellows building at 82 E. Santa Clara St. The building became available after Leisure Sports decided it wanted a different downtown location a couple of blocks away.
“We are in contract to sell the furniture store
building,” said Patrick O’Brien, chief financial officer with Leisure Sports.
O’Brien declined to identify the buyer. However, multiple individuals with knowledge about the deal said that the buyer is a group led by Kalanick, who
co-founded Uber but eventually exited the ride-hailing tech company under a cloud of controversy.
Kalanick could not be reached for comment. However, in a March 2018 tweet, Kalanick referred
to his “new gig” that’s underpinned by a fund called 10100 Fund, which has a focus on redevelopment of real estate assets. One of the first investments by the $150 million fund was City Storage Systems, according to the tweet.
“Of particular interest are City Storage Systems’ leading B2B initiatives, CloudKitchen and CloudRetail, focused on real estate acquisition and development for the food and retail service industries,” Kalanick said in his tweet.
Leisure Sports intends to open a new Club Sport fitness center at the old Roos Atkins building at 2 N. 1st St. An affiliate of Leisure Sports, KSP Holdings, paid $15.5 million for the new location this week.
The burst of investment activity along Santa Clara Street, a much-neglected stretch of downtown San Jose, suggests that realty entrepreneurs see plenty of potential in the area.
Big investors such as developer Jay Paul, along with up-and-coming real
estate entrepreneurs such as Gary Dillabough have been buying properties in a roughly two-block section of the downtown area, and have launched major upgrades of the buildings.
“This is like billionaires’ row on Santa Clara Street,” said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial, a realty firm. “This has been a forlorn section of downtown San Jose, but it’s turning around.”
The interest by big investors points to a dramatic turnaround for the urban heart of the Bay Area’s largest city, according to Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association.
“When you have the billionaire Uber founder getting involved in this area, that is a real tipping point for downtown San Jose,” Knies said. “And the building that Leisure Sports has
bought it is a real diamond in the rough.”
Some have described the CloudKitchen concept as a kind of WeWork for chefs and bakers, providing shared spaces for culinary experts to drop in and prepare meals that could then be delivered to customers.
At the cloudkitchens. com site, established restaurants and chefs, nondelivery restaurants, dining entrepreneurs and food trucks were listed as the principal customers that the venture seeks.
“This is a very exciting, thrilling concept,” Knies said. “This has the potential to elevate the epicurean offerings downtown. It really can up San Jose’s game as a dining destination.”