Citation Homes, continuing to ramp up its development pipeline in Silicon Valley, has acquired a nearly 4-acre San Jose retail site near Santana Row where it is planning a mixed-use project with apartments and retail.Santa Clara-based Citation — the company headed by former Oakland A's owner Stephen C. Schott — paid an undisclosed sum for the Toys R Us property at 751 S. Winchester Blvd. this week, according to public records. The seller was the Wayne, N.J.-based retailer.
Toys R Us did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Citation's Stephen Schott Jr., who now runs the company, told me it's still very early in the development process. Citation has not yet turned in a proposal for the site, and it's unclear just how many units and how much retail could be built. But he said the location near the intersection of two major freeways, major jobs and retail centers is ideal.
"It's going to take some time, and we're working with the city," Schott told me. "We feel long-term, it's a great project and a great location for mixed use."
This is the latest sign of Citation's resurgence in the region. Citation — once one of the largest homebuilders here — cut back on its new projects several years ago. Now it has about 1,500 units in the pipeline, most of them apartments.
Case in point: Also on Tuesday, Citation closed on a 4.5-acre site in Fremont, where it is considering 76 apartments and 54 townhomes. Citation paid $13.15 million for that land, a former city corporation yard. (I wrote about this deal back in July.)
Citation's biggest project here is in Milpitas, where it has some 1,000 units near the new BART station coming online in three stages. The first, with about 380 units, is under construction.
And Citation is already in lease-up mode at Tuscany, a Santa Clara apartment complex on El Camino Real that includes 133 apartments. "It's doing pretty well so far, and it's not even open yet," Schott said.
While the activity represents a major ramp-up, Schott said the company is not trying to grow just for growth's sake.
"We're just trying to slowly build up an apartment portfolio that makes sense," he said. "And we'll still do townhouse here and there."
As for when the Toys R Us site could get going? The retailer is in the building at least through early 2016, and could extend its lease beyond that, assuming both parties were on the same page.
Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Nathan Donato-Weinstein
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/10/01/citation-homes-buys-san-jose-toys-r-us-site-for.html
No comments:
Post a Comment