SAN JOSE — Scores of townhomes could sprout on a prime site currently occupied by a big office building in north San Jose, a fresh attempt to convert a commercial real estate property to residential uses.
The project would consist of 85 “multi-family residential” townhomes and would be built at 2107 North First Street in San Jose, documents on file with city planners show.
The site occupied by the office building is a parcel totaling 3.9 acres at the corner of North First Street and Karina Court.
The six-story office building totals roughly 103,000 square feet. A large surface parking lot is adjacent to the building.
A growing number of property owners and developers have begun to pitch plans of varying types to convert existing office properties into housing projects.
The brutal post-coronavirus market for office buildings has prodded developers to seek alternatives to some commercial real estate properties.
In the wake of wide-ranging business shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus, office employees fled their workspaces in huge numbers.
Yet even after coronavirus-linked restrictions have eased even as the threat posed by the deadly bug has faded, the return to the office has proceeded at an uneven pace.
Plus, tech companies have tempered their appetites for office space, which has muted demand and shoved office vacancies higher.
It wasn’t clear from the preliminary filing whether the owner of the office building site, Stanley Group, intends to bulldoze the office building or construct the housing in a fashion that leaves the offices intact.
Campbell-based Stanley Group, by happenstance, has proposed the development of 107 townhomes a few blocks away at 2611 North First Street in San Jose, replacing some existing offices. That site is 4.9 acres, which means the density again works out to about 22 dwelling units an acre.
Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy, said 85 townhomes don’t appear to be very many residences for a 3.9-acre parcel.
If spread over the entire parcel, including the part of the property occupied by the office building, that works out to roughly 22 dwelling units per acre.
“Even for townhouses, 22 dwellings per acre is extremely low density,” Staedler said.