SAN JOSE — Adobe Systems hopes to break ground sometime in 2019 on a fourth office tower that would expand the tech giant’s headquarters in downtown San Jose, according to a top company executive.

In January, Adobe paid $68 million for a lot at 333 and 335 W. San Fernando St., directly across from the north side of the company’s current downtown San Jose complex of three office high rises. Now the company is actively laying plans for a new office tower as it continues to expand in San Jose.

“I think it will break ground in about a year,” Scott Ekman, Adobe’s director of workplace strategy and solutions, said in a recent interview. “We are just getting started with the design on the new tower. We are literally out right now with RFPs (requests for proposals) from architects.” A pedestrian footbridge will link the existing campus with the new fourth tower.

Word of the potential construction date cheered San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who has been a vocal and active proponent of a revived, expanding and more transit-oriented downtown district.

“I’ll be the first one out there with a shovel,” Mayor Liccardo said in an interview.

Ekman and Liccardo were interviewed in Santa Clara following a recent conference sponsored by San Jose-based Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

“We have known for a long time at Adobe that having folks together helps with innovation,” Ekman said. “So the decision then was: How can we get people together? Downtown San Jose made the most sense.”

Adobe has a significant need for new offices in the city’s urban core.

“Adobe is planning to hire hundreds of people a year in downtown San Jose,” Ekman told the Leadership Group during a panel discussion. “But where will these young people live?”

One solution is to concentrate the campus expansion in San Jose, which has considerable housing already. Mayor Liccardo has vowed to spur the construction of 25,000 residences between now and 2022.

The Adobe campus and the expansion parcel are a short distance from Diridon Station, which is a hub for Caltain, Amtrak, Capitol Corridor, ACE Train and light-rail train lines. In the future, the station is expected to have BART stops and a possible high-speed rail connection to the Central Valley.

Also nearby, Mountain View-based Google is eyeing a transit-oriented community of offices and amenities totaling 6 million to 8 million square feet where the search giant could employ 15,000 to 20,000 workers on the western border of downtown, near Diridon Station and SAP Center.

“Adobe was one of the very first tech companies to create a headquarters in an urban setting,” Ekman said. “San Jose is our home, and it’s where we want to continue to grow. Downtown San Jose is where we wanted to double down and keep growing.”

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“Adobe made a visionary decision decades ago to choose a vertical urban option,” Mayor Liccardo said. “I’m grateful for that vision, and it is one that will ultimately pay dividends for a whole community in addressing our challenges in housing congestion and affordability.”