Google takes full ownership of dozens of downtown San Jose transit village sites

SAN JOSE — Google bought out its real estate partner for a downtown San Jose transit village by purchasing roughly five-dozen properties near the Diridon train station, a move that one expert deems to be an encouraging milestone in the development of the mega project.

The 56 downtown San Jose properties that the search giant bought are now owned by Google LLC, the limited liability company that Google has used to complete billions of dollars of property purchases in Silicon Valley in recent years.

“These deals show that Google has the will and determination to get this project done in a timely manner,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land use and planning consultancy.

The seller in the 29 transactions, completed Aug. 15, was TC Agoge Associates, an enterprise that developer Trammell Crow had formed to buy the properties on behalf of Google starting more than two years ago in January 2017.

In every instance, Google paid the same amount of money that the Trammell Crow affiliate shelled out to obtain the properties in the first place, according to this news organization’s review of the TC Agoge purchases and how they stacked up against their respective sales to Google LLC.

Trammell Crow sold the properties to Google for a cumulative $191.5 million, according to Santa Clara County property records that were filed on Aug. 15.

Mountain View-based Google, starting with its direct purchase of an old telephone company building in December 2016, has now paid $386.8 million to buy parcels it needs for the transit-oriented community the tech titan envisions for the Diridon Station and SAP Center area. That includes the properties that had been owned by the Trammell Crow firm.

The properties that the Trammell Crow affiliate bought on Google’s behalf included vacant lots, office structures, commercial buildings, at least one restaurant property, a union hall, industrial parcels, houses, a car wash, a shuttered Orchard Supply Hardware Store, and the site of the century-old Kearney Foundry and Pattern Works.

The search giant also has bought numerous properties previously owned by the city of San Jose and an affiliated government entity. These public agency deals also included some parking lots, a Fire Department training center, along with the land beneath popular watering hole Patty’s Inn and the well-known Stephen’s Meat sign. Google also has obtained an option to buy the big parking lots next to the SAP Center.

Google spokesman Michael Appel confirmed the Aug. 15 property purchases by Google LLC.

“Direct ownership gives Google much more control and flexibility,” Staedler said. “It simplifies everything. They are implementing their plan and they know what they are doing.”

The Thursday property deals emerged just a few days before Google presents more project details in public to the Station Area Advisory Group — as well as a few weeks after the tech titan revealed that it had struck a deal to bring aboard a new real estate ally to help facilitate multiple development ventures in Silicon Valley.

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San Jose mayor seeks Sacramento help for Google village Google has embarked on a wide-ranging quest to create several mixed-used neighborhoods — including more housing — in three Bay Area communities: downtown San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View.

Australia-based Lendlease, a mixed-use urban developer, has teamed up with Google on what is expected to become a $15 billion venture to dramatically transform large swaths of all three cities. The money represents the estimated value of the investment needed to develop and complete the mixed-use projects, according to Google.

Diridon Station is seen as a potential magnet for big mixed-use projects such as Google’s because the train depot will be a future BART stop, which would be a dramatic addition to the Caltrain, ACE Train, Capitol Corridor, Amtrak, and light rail links that already connect to the transit hub.

Google has proposed a transit village of office buildings, homes, shops, and restaurants where 25,000 could work, including 15,000 to 20,000 of the search giant’s employees.

“Having direct ownership is a way for Google to line up all the dominoes and begin a dramatic transformation of the Diridon Station area,” Staedler said.

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