Uber co-founder’s group pushes on in San Jose
Plans advance to transform historic building into food hall
A venture controlled by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick has proposed a revamp of a historic building in downtown San Jose that would transform the property into a site that would accommodate dozens of small commercial kitchens.
In 2018, a real estate venture led by Kalanick paid $7.3 million for the historic building, which has addresses that range from 82 through 92 E. Santa Clara St. The realty venture is called City Storage Systems.
Goldman Sachs Bank provided $100 million in financing for City Storage Systems, the Kalanick-led group that bought the prominent building at the corner of East Santa Clara Street and South Third Street, according to county records. The loan was provided at the time of the property purchase.
Now, the Kalanick group is pushing ahead with an effort to dramatically change the uses in the building to transform it into a site for CloudKitchens, a company that Kalanick heads.
The changes include alterations to ground floor storefronts, the installation of new exit doors, minor modifications to existing building entrances along East Santa Clara Street and South Third Street, and sign alterations.
“The proposed alterations would accommodate CloudKitchens, a startup that offers shared commercial kitchen space for delivery-only
restaurants and chefs,” according to a San Jose city staff report.
Over the decades, the property has been a boxing gym, an Odd Fellow’s hall, and a furniture store. Now, it’s poised to be the site of a cutting-edge commercial kitchen venture.
“25 small commercial kitchens would be installed on the first floor and offices would occupy the second and third floors,” the city staff report stated.
The original Odd Fellows building at that address was built around 1885, San Jose officials said.
“The building is of special historical architectural aesthetic value and interest and represents mid-19th century Italianate style commercial design,” according to the city report.
The work in the building, which totals about 38,600 square feet, would be undertaken in the basement and on all three floors of the property, a plan set submitted by the property owner shows. The existing building is actually a collection of two original buildings.
In addition, a considerable amount of work would be done on the exterior of the building.
“The project proposes to retain and reupholster the existing awnings and to partially re-letter the existing signage running horizontally above the storefronts on both East Santa Clara Street and South Third Street,” the city staff report stated.
A large new sign on the building facing along East Santa Clara Street would be worded: “San Jose’s Downtown Food Hall,” according to the project plans.
“The Cloud Kitchens concept cleverly reuses this historic building,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a landuse consultancy. “A modern use with code modifications is not easy to do well.”
Real estate experts say the Kalanick-led real estate venture has been buying other properties around the country.
The downtown San Jose building owned by the Kalanick group has been vacant for years since the furniture store went out of business.
“It’s great to see the investment in a downtown San Jose historic building,” Staedler said.