A developer has proposed an bold high-rise venture simply north of Santana Row and Westfield Valley Truthful — at 14 and 17 tales, far taller than any close by constructing — however not with out important pushback from San Jose and Santa Clara residents who concern the landmark growth might change the character of their neighborhood.
VCI Cos. has requested a common plan modification to facilitate its imaginative and prescient to exchange a vacant, dilapidated workplace constructing close to the nook of Winchester Boulevard and West Hedding Road with a high-rise growth consisting of two towers related by a skyway.
Nonetheless, residents have united to oppose the venture that might attain a most top of 197 toes, calling it “a monstrosity,” “ugly, ugly, ugly” and “an attempt to bring downtown to our neighborhood” at a neighborhood assembly final week.
“These 17- and 14-story buildings are not suitable for an established single-family neighborhood,” resident Kevin Golden mentioned. “This project brings no benefit to the Cory neighborhood or our Santa Clara neighbors. The developers are the only ones benefitting while they forever negatively change the Cory neighborhood.”
A number of builders have eyed enhancements to the .6-acre workplace property at 826 N. Winchester Blvd., which is riddled with graffiti, and has been the location of a number of fires and felony exercise.
However earlier than the earlier proprietor broke floor, VCI acquired the location final yr for greater than $6.5 million after lenders foreclosed on the property.
Kelly Erardi, director of entitlements at VCI Cos., mentioned the proposed 135-unit venture would encompass 70 one-bedroom and 65 two-bedroom models. Twenty of the models could be put aside as inclusionary reasonably priced housing.
Together with the residential element, Erardi mentioned the developer was eyeing 15,000 sq. toes of retail house and 18,800 sq. toes of privately owned, public open house that it will design with suggestions from the neighborhood.
However dozens of residents — a lot of whom have lived within the single-family residential neighborhood that abuts the property for a number of years — spoke out towards the proposal as a consequence of site visitors, security and parking issues, in addition to the sheer dimension of the buildings that will tower over their houses.
“It doesn’t have the infrastructure to support a 17-story building with such high-density housing,” mentioned Michelle Olmstead of the neighborhood the place her household has lived for a number of many years.
Critics of the venture additionally famous that parking had develop into an growing drawback within the space after Santana Row began charging for parking, resulting in an inflow of vehicles on residential streets.
The present zoning designation on the web site limits the peak on some elements of the property to 35 toes, whereas permitting as much as 50 toes on different parts.
Whereas the developer has sough to alter the world to a transit residential district, which might permit for elevated constructing heights and density, planning employees famous that the proposal was nonetheless inconsistent with a number of metropolis insurance policies.
Excluding one resident, the one optimistic feedback got here from housing advocates, who referred to as the venture transformative and important for town to fulfill its state housing mandates that require it to plan for 62,200 models by 2031.
“The city has a requirement of 60,000 new housing units in the next eight years, and this is a fantastic opportunity to get closer to that,” Catalyze SV Govt Director Alex Shoor mentioned. “I have had dozens of my friends and loved ones who have left this area because they cannot afford to live in this community anymore. There is nothing more important to a community than keeping its people in that community they love.”
However Stefan Ewald, who lives on the Santa Clara aspect of the neighborhood, mentioned he was disturbed that housing advocates and the developer, who don’t dwell of their neighborhood, talked about what the neighborhood wants as a substitute of listening to what residents have been telling them about their issues or what they wished.
“They talked a lot about community, and yes indeed this will be transformative — but not in a good way,” Ewald mentioned.
San Jose is amassing enter for an environmental affect report, which it might launch within the latter parts of the third quarter of 2025. Metropolis employees mentioned planning fee and Metropolis Council hearings would happen in late 2025 or early 2026 primarily based on that timeline.
Regardless of the fierce pushback, Erardi mentioned the developer would doubtless maintain extra neighborhood conferences in hopes of addressing neighborhood issues.
“We’re here to listen, and some of the things we heard we’re not particularly surprised about, and we’ll do our best to work towards addressing some of these items and see what we can come up with,” Erardi mentioned.
