Protesters disrupt ‘Future of Downtown San Jose’ event
Protesters concerned over what they believe is the city’s lack of transparency in development deals stormed a private event Friday morning at the Fairmont Hotel, disrupting a room full of influential San Jose leaders, developers and stakeholders discussing the future of downtown.
The event — dubbed “The Future of Downtown San Jose” — was hosted by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in downtown San Jose and cost $115 a ticket to attend. More than 400 people turned out to listen to a half dozen panelists, including developer Case Swenson, real estate professional Erik Hayden
and Alexa Arena, Google’s director of real estate development.
A few minutes after the event’s keynote speaker, Mayor Sam Liccardo, began speaking, about 20 protesters entered the hotel’s ballroom. After 10 minutes of chanting phrases such as “Google is not welcome here” and “we won’t be displaced! We won’t be replaced!”, event organizers gave a microphone to one of the protesters and allowed them to answer a few questions over their concerns
about development within the city.
“Clearly they were frustrated,” said J. Jennings Moss, the editor and general manager of the Silicon Valley Business Journal. “And so my point was to at least try to have a conversation and get their point of view to the audience that was there to listen.”
After about 20 minutes, a group of police officers entered the ballroom and escorted the protesters out of the hotel. Mayor Liccardo resumed the stage to finish his speech and the event went on with its planned panelist discussions.
The protesters — associated with the group Serve
the People San Jose — said that they were concerned about the event’s lack of inclusiveness and about how development within the city was causing gentrification, skyrocketing property values and an exponential increase in homelessness.
“Community members heard about this a few days ago and thought that it was really gross, honestly, that people had to pay a lot of money to get in and they weren’t including the views of the people who are actually going to be affected by all of this,” said Sophia Smith, a Santa Clara University student living in San Jose.
For the first time in years,
big development plans are taking form in San Jose’s downtown core.
San Jose-based Adobe Systems is expanding its three-building downtown campus by constructing an adjacent tower that is expected to nearly double the company’s workforce.
Veteran developer Jay Paul broke ground late last year on a 19-story office tower that will total 875,000 square feet and could accommodate up to 4,400 employees. On top of that project, the developer has also submitted plans to build a massive campus that would feature three 19-story office towers and could accommodate between 17,000 to
23,000 new employees in the city’s downtown core.
The project of greatest interest and concern, though, lies with MountainView based Google.
Google has submitted plans to build a transit village just east of Diridon Station that would create 6.5 million square feet of office space; up to 300 hotel rooms; 3,000 to 5,000 residential units; 300,000 to 500,000 square feet of commercial and active space, including retail and restaurants; up to 100,000 square feet of event space; and up to 800 rooms that would be set aside for visiting Google employees, according to project plans.
This month a team of negotiators from the city and Google began what is expected to be a six-month process to hash out a contract that outlines what exactly Google will be allowed to develop and how much the tech giant will contribute to cover the project’s impacts.
Concerns over secrecy between the city and Google on the tech company’s proposed transit village in downtown San Jose are not new. In 2018, two nonprofit groups unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit against the city, challenging non-disclosure agreements that several local officials, including Liccardo, signed in connection with the development.