SAN JOSE — Developers are planning a residential and retail tower a short distance from downtown San Jose, a few light rail train stops from offices proposed by tech giants in the city’s urban heart, an architect said Thursday.
Southwest Plaza at Bascom Station is expected to be the new name of the housing high rise, said Kurt Anderson, principal executive with Campbell-based Anderson Architects, which designed the 10-story tower.
“We’re right across the street from the Bascom light rail station,” Anderson said. “We truly are at a transit hub.”
The development is expected to feature 710 residential units and 12,500 square feet of retail. The site also will include a plaza totaling 11,500 square feet.
“This is part of the proposed Southwest Urban Village Plan in San Jose,” Anderson said. “We are just following the general plan, the city’s vision for development in that area.”
The developers believe the project would be convenient for people who needed to access downtown San Jose or other nearby communities.
“By light rail, we are about five minutes from the Diridon transit station and about five minutes from downtown Campbell,” Anderson said. “We think it’s a great location.”
The project would be a huge net increase in the number of residential units in San Jose. The development site, which would be bulldozed for the new development, currently contains the 126-unit Shelter Creek Apartments.
“This shows how2 some of these older assets have become popular for upzoning and higher densities,” said said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Synergy, a San Jose-based land use and planning consultancy.
The proposed development’s location, outside of the downtown proper, but near enough to swiftly reach it, was deemed to be represent a change in how people are viewing the development and transit upgrades in San Jose’s central core, Staedler said.
Adobe Systems is planning a new office tower across the street from its current headquarters complex in downtown San Jose. Mountain View-based Google is considering a big complex that would consist of 6 million to 8 million square feet of offices where 15,000 to 20,000 Google employees could work.
“This is part of the Google effect, the Google bounce,” Staedler said. “Adobe is expanding.”
