https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/...-google-adobe/
San Jose downtown tower would add homes, offices, retail
A downtown San Jose site on Carlysle Street between Notre Dame Street and
Almaden Road. A veteran development firm is planning a residential tower
along with offices and retail at a choice downtown San Jose site near the
SAP Center and Little Italy.
George Avalos / Bay Area News Group
George Avalos / Bay Area News Group A downtown San Jose site on Carlysle Street between Notre Dame Street and Almaden Road. A veteran development firm is planning a residential tower along with offices and retail at a choice downtown San Jose site near the SAP Center and Little Italy.
By GEORGE AVALOS |
gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: March 27, 2018 at 9:09 am | UPDATED: March 27, 2018 at 10:33 am
SAN JOSE — A veteran development firm is planning a residential tower along with offices and retail at a choice downtown San Jose site.
Insight Realty is eyeing a tower of approximately 18 stories on Carlysle Street between Almaden Boulevard and Notre Dame Street, said Dennis Randall, a co-founder and managing director of Insight.
“We are looking at residential, creative technology offices and bar and restaurant spaces on the ground floor,” Randall said.
The development would include about 180 to 200 residential units and potentially a bar and restaurant on the street level. The property at present is owned by the Rubino family.
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The creative offices would total roughly 75,000 to 80,000 square feet, Randall said. A number of modest-sized tech companies have been leasing downtown San Jose offices in smaller spaces.
“There has been no shortage of suitors to buy the Rubino properties,” said Scott Knies, executive director of San Jose Downtown Association. “A number of developers are interested. Like Insight, these developers are familiar with the downtown.”
The site is near freeway ramps for Highway 87. It also is close to the bustling San Pedro Square, the emerging Little Italy area and has proximity to the Diridon train station and SAP Center.
“It’s a fantastic location,” Knies said. “It’s a coveted site.”
In addition, the property is a short distance from areas of development interest for Google, which is eyeing a transit-oriented community of offices, homes, retail and other amenities where 15,000 to 20,000 of the search giant’s employees could work on the west side of downtown San Jose.
A few blocks away, Adobe Systems is actively laying plans to build a new office tower that would dramatically expand the size of the tech titan’s downtown San Jose campus. During a February appearance before the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Scott Ekman, Adobe’s director of workplace strategy and solutions, estimated that his company intends to hire hundreds of people a year to work at its downtown offices.
“We will need to have the creative offices and the ground-floor bars and restaurant spaces for this to work,” Randall said. “Because of city fees, construction costs, it’s hard to justify pure-play residential high rises.”
At present, the principal business on the Carlysle Street properties is Andy’s Pet Shop. Randall said he would consider a lease by the pet store in the new development. However, Randall added, dining and beverage businesses definitely would have to be part of any retail in the future site.
“I believe the project is going to pencil out, but we need much better data from our contractors and everything else,” Randall said. “We are trying to move fast on this.”
Construction costs are going up about 1 percent a month or 12 percent a year, Randall estimated. These increases top the overall Bay Area inflation rate by a big margin.
Insight Realty is also working on two other key downtown San Jose mixed-use developments.
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Museum Place, proposed for sites near the corner of South Almaden Boulevard and Park Avenue, would include 340,000 square feet of offices, 152 residential units and a 225-room Kimpton hotel. Rail Yard Place, off Coleman Avenue near the corner of Ryland and Santa Teresa streets, would consist of 476 apartment units and 220,000 square feet of offices.
“Everybody is receptive to making San Jose the next great American city with a great downtown,” Randall said, when asked about how active his company is in the city’s urban core. “But if that’s going to happen, we may need some changes in city fees and regulations.”