SAN JOSE — A big transit village slated to sprout at the entrance to the future downtown San Jose BART station is coming into view as a grand concept that would dramatically reshape a key block of the city’s urban core.
The development could bring new uses to the downtown San Jose transit village that would fully incorporate a planned BART station near West Santa Clara Street and North First Street, preliminary concepts indicate.
“The site plan demonstrates how urban design supports community building with a grand public transit station connected to an open space courtyard that can be shared with residents, workers, visitors, and students,” said Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association.
London-based Foster+Partners, a famed design and architectural studio, has begun to craft the look and feel of the transit village with concepts that show how the project could be a major addition to downtown San Jose.
“The concepts are beyond amazing,” said Nick Goddard, a broker and downtown expert with Colliers International, a commercial real estate firm. “It’s a real feather in the cap for the downtown market to have Foster+Partners involved in this project.”
An estimated 1.84 million square feet of new development would rise on the block, including office buildings, homes, shops, restaurants, hotel rooms, and open spaces.
“It’s very exciting to see a thoughtful development approach from a world-class architect,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy. “The mix of uses of office, market-rate, and affordable housing alongside a hotel is a great utilization of the site.”
The BART station entrance at the project site would be on the north side of Santa Clara Street, and the design shows the transit stop would be smoothly melded with the high-density buildings in the project.
“The images take your breath away,” said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial, a real estate firm. “Setting the BART station entrance as a portal into the built environment, that is smart. This is the kind of density San Jose needs.”
The block where the project would rise is bounded by West Santa Clara Street, North First Street, West St. John Street, and North Market Street.
The development concepts were scheduled to be presented Friday at a meeting of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, or VTA, as part of an update about the design of the VTA block.
“Kudos for VTA thinking big and bringing in Foster+Partners to show what is possible for a dense mixed-use development that fully leverages the future BART station and downtown amenities,” Knies said.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, or VTA, is the principal property owner of the block, but major developers Jay Paul Co. and Swenson also own key parcels on the site.
Ritchie likes the idea that the project would be as dense as possible and that the building structures would crowd right up to the adjacent sidewalks and streets.
“San Jose is a big city, so let’s act like one,” Ritchie said. “This is why BART is here, for maximum density. You want a concentration of people next to the BART stop.”
Ritchie pointed out that new BART stations over the decades have ushered in significant changes in multiple Bay Area cities when the transit stops have opened.
Downtown San Francisco, downtown Oakland, and downtown Walnut Creek are examples of neighborhoods that have been altered dramatically with greater densities in the areas of their BART stations, Ritchie said.
A short distance to the west, the prospect of a BART stop at the Diridon train station, along with existing light rail, Caltrain, Amtrak, ACE Train, and Capitol Corridor lines, are among the factors that have enticed Google to propose a mixed-use transit village called Downtown West.
The Google village would be a transit-oriented neighborhood of office buildings, houses, restaurants, shops, hotel rooms, entertainment centers, cultural hubs, and open spaces where the search giant could employ 25,000 people.
With the potential for two downtown BART stations in the works, San Jose should embrace the possibilities of such dramatic additions in mass transit, Ritchie said.
“San Jose needs to get over its inhibitions about high density,” Ritchie said. “These kinds of high-density projects are what San Jose needs and what it deserves.”
