In December I posted a chronology of events that have occurred in San Jose over the past year related to various developers and landowners who have property near the Diridon South site. One of the more important developments was the decision of San Jose Water Company to sell its downtown lots. A parcel on the 8-acre SJWC property may finally have a buyer. The Merc reported today that Adobe is interested in buying the eastern 5-acre parcel, for which there are entitlements for up to 1 million square feet of office space. Adobe would build a fourth tower to complement the three-tower complex Adobe currently occupies on the other side of Guadalupe Parkway (CA-87). The location would make the new tower smack dab in the center field view, with the other three towers in the right field view. Adobe would get so much free publicity from having those sites visible from the ballpark that they wouldn't have to bother with naming rights since having the buildings in plain view would be much more cost-effective for them.
The article didn't reveal any potential buyers for the 2.5-acre parcel to the west of the Adobe-coveted site. That site is zoned for 325 housing units and up to 15,000 square feet of retail. It'll be interesting to see who ends up with that parcel, since those entitlements could be key for a San Jose financing plan. To see how close it is, take a look at this map link. The residential parcel is the triangle defined by Delmas Ave to the east, Los Gatos Creek to the west, and light rail/W San Fernando St to the south. It's only a few hundred feet northeast of Diridon South.
The San Jose Sharks may have a say in the end about how the parcels are developed. The team has an agreement with the City of San Jose to have a minimum inventory of parking available for all events. If the property were to be developed without replacing parking the inventory would be reduced by 855 spaces, which is nothing to sneeze at since the lots get heavy use for all heavily attended HP Pavilion events.
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4 comments:
ML, do you know off the top of your head what the FAA height restrictions of the site in question are?
208' above sea level. Downtown is around 90' so buildings can't be more than 100-110' without a special FAA clearance.
Thanks... That's even lower than I presumed. 108' doesn't make for a very impressive tower, but visibility would be high simply because of the location.
It's not going to be really tall. There are some preliminary site plans drawn up for SJWC here.
Supposedly there are plans for 3000 parking spaces too, but I have a hard time seeing it. Having a single tenant like Adobe is a good idea because the office vacancy rate downtown was 22% at the end of 2005. Housing wouldn't work on the eastern parcel because one flight path almost directly over it.
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