SAN JOSE — The Graduate, a new residential tower geared towards students in downtown San Jose, is poised to be a fresh development venture that can help combat the Bay Area housing crisis.

Developers say The Graduate, an L-shaped project being built at 300 S. 2nd St., is a 260-room high rise a block from the edge of San Jose State University.

The project is a joint venture of San Jose-based Swenson, a realty development and investment firm, and Los Angeles-based Amcal Equities, a long-time residential developer.

“The Graduate will serve as a significant bridge between campus and the SoFA District as well as the surrounding urban amenities of downtown,” said Case Swenson, president of Swenson.

San Jose’s SoFA District is the downtown’s principal arts and entertainment area and stretches along three blocks of South First Street between San Carlos and Reed streets. The new project is between the university campus and the SoFA neighborhood.

The residential component’s 260 residential units will contain 1,039 beds. Swenson and Amcal were scheduled to break ground on the project Thursday evening. It’s expected to be complete in 2020.

“It’s gratifying to see our aspirations for a vibrant downtown coming to life as we bring another 1,000 residents, primarily college students integral to San Jose’s future trajectory, into our core,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said Thursday.

Amcal embraced San Jose’s decision to approve additional student-targeted housing near San Jose State University.

“Students will have more near-campus choices to help them realize their academic dreams, said Percival “Percy” Vaz, Amcal’s chief executive officer.

The Graduate complex has gotten underway just days after Mayor Liccardo announced a housing initiative whereby 25,000 homes would be built over five years in the Bay Area’s largest city — a brisk pace of 5,000 residential units a year.

To be sure, the new project — breaking ground after Liccardo unveiled his proposal for the major boost in housing construction — is by no means a result of that program.

However, it’s clear that any residential developments, especially new high-density projects such as The Graduate tower, could land in the spotlight because of the attention the mayor’s announcement brought to the housing crisis.

“We have an opportunity to do something now to ensure that this does not become a valley only for the affluent while leaving behind thousands of families who have made their lives here,” Liccardo said earlier this week.

Employers in the technology sector and other industries are concerned recruitment will become increasingly difficult if their prospective workers are unable to find housing near their jobs.

Mountain View-based Google, seeking to leverage mass transit capabilities on the west side of downtown San Jose, has teamed up with a development ally to collect numerous properties that eventually would make way for a transit-oriented village. Google anticipates building 6 million to 8 million square feet of offices where the tech giant could employ 15,000 to 20,000.

Under the mayor’s proposal, about half of the 25,000 residential units would be built in downtown San Jose.

It makes sense to develop new high-density residential towers in downtown San Jose, said Bob Staedler, a principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use planning and consulting firm.

“You have the built-in infrastructure of the transit, the amenities, that are typical of a downtown,” Staedler said. “The idea is to make downtown San Jose a 24-hour downtown, and residential projects like this will help push the downtown in that direction. It’s time for San Jose to grow up and not out.”