San Jose's Greyhound bus terminal could sprout two residential towers totaling more than 700 units in what would be the largest project by unit count ever proposed for the central business district.
KT Urban, downtown's most prodigious high-rise developer, last week turned in an early concept to the San Jose Planning Department for the roughly 1.6-acre site at 70 S. Almaden Ave., according to city records. The application is preliminary, meaning it is meant merely to gather feedback from staff. But it provides the first public glimpse at what KT envisions for the location, and is a clear signal that the redevelopment of the parcel is moving forward, five months after I first reported that KT was in contract to buy the land from Greyhound.
Mark Tersini, principal with Cupertino-based KT Urban, declined to comment. Greyhound, which is hoping to move its bus terminal to Diridon Station, didn't return a request for comment.
The newest proposal comes at the end of a very busy year for residential development downtown, with several high-rise and mid-rise projects breaking ground and entering the development pipeline. Downtown development blogger Mark Haney counts 4,516 units proposed and 1,898 under construction, most of them rentals, in the central core. Right across the street from the Greyhound site, Simeon Residential Properties is seeking approval for a 21-story, 202-unit apartment complex.
And it's just the latest tower design from KT, which built the Axis condo tower, developed the One South Market apartment high-rise and spearheaded the 643-unit Silvery Towers complex, now under construction across from San Pedro Square Market.
The KT Urban concept would see a 24-story and a 23-story tower resting on three levels of underground parking. The plans show multiple potential orientations for the buildings, including east/west and north/south layouts, and it's unclear which direction the developer will be going. One tower would include 294 units, while the other would have 414. The buildings could reach 241 and 251 feet tall.
Also not nailed down: The architecture. The design firm is C2K, which has done KT Urban's other projects. Two large renderings included in the preliminary application show different facades: In one, a glassy skin resembles the One South Market look, with some vertical and horizontal elements breaking up the massing. In the other, a brick facade gives the building more texture between windows.
While much remains unclear, the site is primed for its next act. Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association, called the block one of the best spots in the district, with a location that's smack dab in the middle of downtown's office towers, museums and hotels. Yet it has remained a hole in downtown's fabric even as projects have gone up around it in recent years. He also welcomed the proposal's focus on the ground floor, with perhaps 13,500 square feet of retail mostly on Post Street.
"Looking at the ground floor orientation, this preliminary application is by far the strongest of the recent initial project submissions in terms of recognizing the street level activation," Knies said. "This appropriately puts the front door of the project on Post Street. We think, long term, that’s going to be an important street in the downtown."
One priority, he said, is that the design reflect an evolution from C2K's other projects in the city. "Hopefully, a different statement can be made with the Greyhound site, particularly because it would be the largest housing proposal in downtown's history," Knies said.
Big, but complex, site
While large, the development site covers only one hard corner of the block, at Post Street and Almaden Avenue. Other property owners own existing commercial buildings that border West San Fernando Street and the corner of Post and San Pedro streets, and the proposal doesn't include those buildings.
Developers always want to largest canvas on which to build, but KT has worked around pieces before. On Silvery Towers a couple of blocks away, KT designed two towers that wrap around the historic Fallon House.
Yet KT is clearly trying to grab more of the Greyhound block. The company made an unsolicited offer to buy the defunct Plaza Hotel from the city's former Redevelopment Agency for $900,000, according to a successor agency staff report. The city of San Jose's Housing Department hopes to buy the hotel for $750,000, rehabilitate it and use the property to house the formerly homeless for several years. The agency's oversight board meets Thursday to discuss the sale, one of a slew of sites around the city that the successor agency is selling by state mandate.
The proposal comes at an interesting time for downtown development. A city incentive for downtown residential high rises is expiring soon, meaning that the Greyhound site would move forward in a new economic climate. (An exception for affordable housing fees still applies to downtown project, however.)
"This is a strong sign of downtown’s emergence, that we’re seeing serious high rise developers moving forward without any assurance of fee reductions," San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo told me.
While some observers have called for San Jose to reserve key development sites for future office towers, Liccardo said he's fine with the Greyhound site going residential.
"As long as a developer wants to build tall and incorporate an attractive urban design, I’m not going to quibble over whether it’s residential or office," Liccardo said. "Those are conversations in future years that certainly are worth having. We’re at a very mature point in the economic cycle, and it’s important for me to take advantage of the momentum we have by allowing the market to drive the development."
What's next
KT Urban has not yet closed on the land. It's possible the transaction is contingent upon Greyhound finding another location at Diridon.
The deal, if completed, would take another downtown major downtown site off the table. That is likely to increase attention on remaining underused development opportunities, such as the so-called "Valley Title" block at 300 S. First St., the VTA's three-acre "Mitchell Block" (between Market and First streets and Santa Clara and St. John streets), and a huge parking lot owned by Boston Properties across from the convention center. There are also smaller pieces, such as the long-boarded-up former bank building at 200 Park Ave., a key entrance to downtown, where rumors of projects regularly rise and fall.
But all of that momentum is contingent on rents continuing to grow, which is not guaranteed. That means there will be much focus on the performance of the next project entering lease-up: Simeon's Centerra, a 21-story, 347-unit tower that begins move-ins this month.
Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Nathan Donato-Weinstein
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/12/08/massive-high-rise-project-eyed-for-downtown-san.html
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