SAN JOSE — The owner of a property that’s deemed essential to the revival and expansion of downtown San Jose has landed a hefty loan, a move that could help spur redevelopment or upgrades of the site.

CityView Plaza, a huge office, restaurant and retail complex in downtown San Jose, was bought in July for $283.5 million — in cash — by an affiliate of developer Jay Paul.

Now San Francisco-based Jay Paul, through the affiliate, has obtained a $157.4 million mortgage from Citibank, according to Santa Clara County property documents.

“Jay Paul doesn’t do anything by small measures,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land use and planning consultancy. “He is going to do something big with CityView Plaza.”

The 580,000-square-foot site is bounded by West San Fernando Street, South Almaden Boulevard, Park Avenue and South Market Street, and consists of 534,000 square feet of offices and 46,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space.

“This is a great site,” said Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association. “There is an incredible opportunity to redevelop this property.”

A revived CityView Plaza complex could help connect the respective sites of a future Google transit village near the Diridon train station, as well as the proposed expansion of the Adobe headquarters office campus, with the existing primary main parts of downtown San Jose.

“This is one of the most important blocks in all of downtown,” Knies said. “You have major north-south connections, east-west connections.”

San Pedro Square, a hive of nightlife, entertainment, restaurants and bars; the hotel districts near the Fairmont and Hilton hotels; and the cultural hubs of the Tech Museum and Center for Performing Arts are all a short distance from CityView Plaza.

Jay Paul has already alerted a number of tenants that some leases in CityView Plaza won’t be renewed, according to this news organization’s review of some of the tenancies at CityView Plaza.

If tenants gradually depart, the cash from the loan could help replace the diminished rental revenue. Or, Jay Paul could use some of the funds to begin to re-position the property. Jay Paul didn’t respond to requests for a comment about its intentions for the site.

If Jay Paul chooses to re-sculpt CityView Plaza as a modern and updated campus with state-of-the-art office buildings, other companies could locate downtown.

Among the major clients of Jay Paul in locales such as Sunnyvale: Facebook, Amazon and Google. Facebook realty executives toured the CityView site with Jay Paul executives at some point during the latter half of 2018, according to multiple sources familiar with the CityView situation.

However, creation of a modern tech campus would require that one or more large existing buildings at CityView Plaza be bulldozed.

“Jay Paul is now armed with more cash and he can keep the momentum going on CityView, which is a great project for the downtown,” Staedler said.

One thing is certain: The stakes are huge for this vital site, experts say.

“If CityView Plaza is brought up to current market conditions, it really is a chance for the middle of downtown San Jose to change tremendously,” Knies said.