SAN JOSE — Several hundred homes, an expanded theater and other commercial uses such as a hotel are being eyed in a part of downtown San Jose that’s become a hotbed of development interest.

The development plans have emerged at the south end of downtown San Jose in a neighborhood known as the SoFA district.

“If you look at what’s happening in this area, it was The Pierce that changed everything,” said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial, a realty brokerage. The Pierce is a new 230-unit residential development on South First Street.

A total of 750 residential units, a 150-seat theater and 120,000 square feet of commercial space — a designation that could include a hotel, retail, or offices — are being proposed for several parcels near the corner of South Second and East William streets, along with adjacent lots near South First and East William streets.

“The SoFA area is a place where people are looking for space to do creative things,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use and planning consultancy. “It’s an urban, hip part of downtown San Jose with a lot of creative spaces.”

At present, the development site includes the 100-seat City Lights Theater, a non-profit live-performance venue. The site also includes some residences and a small market, according to documents on file with San Jose city planners.

The development proposal would expand the existing theater seating.

Recent plans for the site have included a 20-story residential tower and a 20-story boutique hotel, according to Staedler.

Separately, developers have proposed other projects in the same south downtown area.

San Jose’s tallest building would rise at 600 S. First St. next to East Reed Street, if developers build a 27-story residential tower containing 285 units and ground-floor retail. Nearby, at the corner of South Second and East Reed streets, developers want to construct a 110-room, seven-story hotel.

“You have an entirely new neighborhood emerging in the SoFA area,” Ritchie said.

Officials with the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, which owns its building next to the proposed project site, said they are aware of the efforts by entrepreneurs to assemble parcels for the development. They said they’ve been approached to sell their property, but aren’t interested in selling at present.

“More residential would be fantastic for us; development is a good thing, but we have to see,” said Cathy Kimball, executive director and chief curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art. “My concern is that there is the potential of destroying an arts district in order to create an arts district.”

Mountain View-based Google’s interest in developing a transit-oriented community of office towers and amenities on the western edges of downtown San Jose near the Diridon transit station and SAP Center appears to have spurred development and investment interest in the city’s urban core. Google plans to build 6 million to 8 million square feet of offices that could accommodate 15,000 to 20,000 of the search giant’s employees.

Plus, in a major expansion of Adobe’s downtown San Jose headquarters campus, Adobe intends to build a new office tower on West San Fernando Street adjacent to the company’s existing three high-rise office buildings.

“With the Google effect and Adobe’s expansion, people are feeling more secure about their investments downtown,” Staedler said.