SAN JOSE — A long-empty lot in San Jose’s Japantown is set to become an arts center in the next few years in a move that the city and local residents hope will help revitalize the area.
The city council on Tuesday approved with no opposition an agreement that will allow the nonprofit organization Silicon Valley Creates to build a cultural and arts community center at the former Japantown Corporation Yard along N. 7th Street between E. Taylor Street and Jackson Street.
“This is a very exciting day for our community,” said Connie Martinez, head of Silicon Valley Creates. “This is a big lift and we are going for it.”
The center, slated to be 55,000 square feet, is expected to house the nonprofit, as well as San Jose Taiko, the New Ballet School, the media nonprofit CreaTV and other groups. It will include rehearsal space and meeting rooms for other arts organizations and community groups. The space is expected to be bordered by housing on two sides and a park.
Martinez hopes the center will ease the pressure local arts organizations face given the high rent costs in Silicon Valley. The organization hopes to file building permits in the next few months, she said, and expects the building to be fully occupied when it opens.
As part of the agreement, San Jose will lease the city-owned land to the nonprofit at just $1 a year for 55 years. Traditionally, the city has subsidized arts projects. The Mexican Heritage Plaza, built with funds from the now-defunct Redevelopment Agency, gets $450,000 a year from the city, for instance. But aside from the below-market lease, the city won’t provide any more financial backing to the Japantown center, and the city is framing the agreement as a new way to support the arts with little financial impact on taxpayers.
“We need to be more resourceful,” Mayor Sam Liccardo told the Mercury News ahead of Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Silicon Valley Creates, which will be responsible for building and running the center, has raised millions of dollars, including $1 million from the Packard Foundation. The group has about $20 million to go, Martinez said, but has a number of funders lined up.
The finalized agreement, which says the nonprofit will do its best to kick off construction by June of next year, comes after years and more than 100 public meetings on what to do with the land.
Once the center of San Jose’s Chinatown, the space eventually fell vacant, with initial plans to build high-rise apartments and shops stymied by funding constraints and local residents worried about overcrowding.
“This is our opportunity to make San Jose the real arts center for the West Coast,” said Roy Hirabayashi, founder of San Jose Taiko.
As a nonprofit, Silicon Valley Creates will be exempt from a number of taxes, but the project is expected to bring in more than $1.5 million in construction taxes and development fees, and create about 100 temporary construction jobs.
“That synergy that will happen with us just being next to each other,” echoed Chad Johnston, head of CreaTV, “I think is going to create something really important.”
