San Jose project would add offices, retail, 582 homes

SAN JOSE — Nearly 600 homes and about 300,000 square feet of offices would sprout in west San Jose on Stevens Creek Boulevard under a plan for a new urban village proposed by Fortbay, a Bay Area developer.

The project would be located at 4300 Stevens Creek Blvd., currently a low-slung complex with a collection of offices and retail.

“We feel the market out there is strong,” Tom deRegt, one of the principal executives with Fortbay, said in an interview Monday. “That’s why we are pushing ahead with this project and the urban village approach.”

The development would demolish the existing buildings on the site, which now has four office buildings and one retail building, according to a San Jose planning staff memo about the plan.

“The project proposes four main buildings: an office/retail building, a parking garage, an eight-story residential and retail building and an eight-story residential building,” the city staff memo stated.

The 300,000 square-foot office building would contain 7,000 square feet of ground floor retail. One of the residential buildings would contain roughly 289 residential units and about 13,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The other residential building would contain about 293 residential units, according to the city.

“The office buildings, the housing, those are no surprise because of all the demand that we still are seeing,” said Mark Ritchie, principal executive with San Jose-based Ritchie Commercial, a realty firm.

Los Gatos-based Fortbay paid $53 million in 2016 for the roughly 10-acre site.

The urban village approach in that area makes sense, Ritchie said. “You almost always have to consider housing to go along with larger commercial projects these days,” Ritchie said.

That’s because the Bay Area’s deteriorating traffic conditions have intensified pressure on developers and government leaders to locate a fresh set of residences next to any major new office complexes.

Fortbay’s project is on the south side of Stevens Creek Boulevard between Woodhams Road and Kiely Boulevard.

“It’s really a central location, half way between the Apple campuses and Santana Row,” deRegt said.

Santana Row developers are already constructing a major new office complex at the south end of the upscale retail, restaurant, residential and hotel complex in San Jose.

At present, the Fortbay development is going through an environmental impact review before any final approvals might occur and actual construction would begin.

“We don’t really have a timeline for the city approval process,” deRegt said.

Still, some prospective tenants have already inquired about the mixed-use project. “We are getting some interest from companies that would like to lease the office building,” deRegt said.

The project could potentially be ideal for tech companies seeking high-end offices that would be attractive to recruits and existing employees. Apple and Splunk both have leased office buildings in the area.

“We are pretty pleased with the interest we are getting from tenants,” deRegt said.

Share this: Print

View more on The Mercury News