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#1 ·
Most Santa Clara County residents soon will speak a language other than English at home
By Mike Swift
MEDIANEWS STAFF

Inside a San Jose industrial shop, Mason Lin stands amid the tart smell of natural gas, holding a glass tube over a hissing blue flame. Lin waits until the tube glows orange before twisting it into the serpentine swirls and bows of a Mandarin character.

Within three hours, a colorful neon sign that will blaze the name of a Chinese-owned business into the night emerges between Lin's patient fingers.

The words "Now Hiring" appear over the door of Allen Signs, the sign-making company owned by Mason Lin's brother Allen. When Allen Lin arrived in San Jose from Taiwan in 1981, there was enough work to support one man making Chinese signs, no more. Mason joined him in 1986, and Allen Signs is now a seven-person shop, with Lin looking for a few more workers.

"Ever since 1990, I can see it, it's steady -- irregardless of the economy, our growth is very steady," said Allen Lin, who makes signs in both Chinese and English -- frequently in both -- for everything from yogurt shops and American fast-food franchises to flooring companies. "In 1981, I'm the only one doing that."

As it grows as a global technology hub, Silicon Valley has become one of the most polyglot places in the United States. Santa Clara County is on the brink of a linguistic milestone: Within the next few years, more people will speak a foreign language at home than the number who speak English, recently released census data shows. Given the statistical uncertainty, that threshold may already have been crossed.

Santa Clara County has the largest population of Hindi speakers among all counties in the United States, the second largest population of Vietnamese speakers, the third largest population of Persian/Farsi speakers, and the fifth biggest number of Chinese speakers, a MediaNews analysis of 2005 census data shows.

Since 2000, Santa Clara County has passed Los Angeles and San Francisco to become the California county with the highest percentage of immigrants, with 36 percent of its population born outside of the United States. Miami is the only metropolitan region in the United States with a higher percentage of immigrants than the San Jose area.


There are about a dozen large counties in the United States -- including Los Angeles, Miami-Dade and the New York City boroughs of Queens and the Bronx -- where English-speakers are in the minority. But perhaps only urban Queens has the global shuffle of suburban Santa Clara County, with its multiple South and East Asian languages and sizable Spanish-speaking population.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, which has a new 2007 Index report, calls the linguistic mix an economic advantage, allowing collaboration with emerging "spikes" of high-tech innovation and venture capital investment in regions like Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; and Helsinki, Finland.

"If you think about Miami or L.A., those are places that are characterized in some sense by ethnic tension, and that's not the case in Silicon Valley," said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley.

Perhaps, but language was at the heart of two recent community battles in Silicon Valley -- Palo Alto's debate over a Mandarin language immersion program in its public schools, and the city of Santa Clara's dust-up over a proposal to designate a stretch of El Camino Real as a Koreatown, with a Korean-language police officer and requirements that Korean-American merchants post signs in English as well as Korean.

Both ideas met with an emotional backlash from residents. Koreatown opponents, who said the plan could splinter Santa Clara along ethnic lines, gathered more than 1,000 petition signatures under the banner "Santa Clara Unity" to oppose the idea, which the city killed in January.

Santa Clara resident Ron Johnstone said Koreatown was an example of something that erodes the nation's common identity.

When Johnstone's father arrived in New York wearing a hat as an immigrant from England in the 1930s, he looked down from his ship and "he didn't see a single person wearing a hat. He had decided he was going to be an American, so he took the hat and he threw it overboard. That was an example of a man who wanted to become an American," Johnstone said. Proposals such as Koreatown aren't "doing us a bit of good. We don't try to get people to fit in, it would be much better for them if we did."

In San Jose, City Council member Madison Nguyen wants to designate a Vietnamtown but said she doesn't want segregation.

"We're not just focusing on our community, we're integrating into this country," Nguyen said of San Jose's Vietnamese. "I think in a way it's nice to have that sort of (Vietnamtown) designation, but at the same time, it's nice to sort of blend in, blend in with the city and know there is a large group of Vietnamese-Americans, of Filipino-Americans or Indo-Americans here but at the same time integrating into the city."

By some measures of race and ethnicity, Los Angeles, Miami or New York City all have more diversity than Silicon Valley.

"They don't have a sizeable black population. They don't have the Latino population" of Los Angeles or Miami, said Albert Camarillo, a Stanford history professor who studies immigrant and Latino issues. In Los Angeles and parts of New York City, a majority of residents speak languages other than English at home.

What is remarkable about Santa Clara County is the number of languages spoken by a sizeable number of people -- from Asian languages such as Tagalog, Korean and Gujarathi, to European languages such as German, Russian and Portuguese. The San Jose Unified School District teaches English to a student population that speaks about 40 languages at home, from Arabic to Tigrinya, a language spoken by an ethnic group that originates in Eritrea and parts of neighboring Ethiopia in eastern Africa.

Although Asian languages are growing more quickly, Spanish remains the most common foreign language in Santa Clara County, spoken by about 18 percent of the population, up from about 14 percent in 1990. Mandarin and other dialects of Chinese are next, spoken by about 8 percent of the population -- double its share in 1990. Vietnamese and Tagalog come next.

Silicon Valley is also essentially suburban in character, unlike the dense and tribal urban neighborhoods of the Northeast that were the beachheads of an earlier generation of immigrants and remain so in places such as Queens.

Silicon Valley immigrants also are more likely to be bilingual. In Los Angeles, San Francisco and Queens, 40 percent or less of Chinese-speakers speak English "very well," 2005 census numbers show. In Santa Clara County, about 50 percent of Chinese-speakers speak English very well. According to the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley report's analysis of census data, 80 percent of the region's immigrants speak English "well" or "very well."

San Jose has the best-educated suburbs in the United States in terms of people with a four-year college degree, according to an analysis by Brookings Institution demographer Bill Frey, and it is the leading edge of a transformation that increasingly makes it tougher for politicians seeking national office to capture "the suburban vote" with a single strategy.

"Back in the 1950s, the suburbs were distinct in terms of their demographics," Frey said. "You could say you were from the suburbs and people would conjure up that you were white, middle class, had a family and lived in a single-family house. Now it's almost the reverse ... you talk about the suburbs and that's a microcosm of America."

About 55 percent of Silicon Valley's science and engineering talent was born abroad, the Joint Venture report says, with 40 percent of the region's total work force foreign-born.

The Babelian stew of languages is so ingrained to the economic life of Silicon Valley that the view from Hilda Balakhane's storefront is hardly remarkable anymore.

Balakhane and her husband, Albert Sedighpour, own Fantasy Collection, a store in a nondescript strip mall on Union Avenue that sells unique gifts -- Persian CDs, videos, crossword puzzles, books, evil eyes and other charms, and a vast array of pots to cook Persian rice dishes. The store is stacked high with the ceremonial objects crucial to any Persian wedding. People come from as far as Sacramento and Monterey to rent or buy, but also just to hear their own language spoken.

Fantasy Collection "is like the home to a lot of homesicks who come here," Balakhane said in her store one recent afternoon.

Looking out toward Union Avenue, Balakhane has a view of an Indian-owned liquor store, a Palestinian-owned food market, a Vietnamese-owned nail salon, a Mexican taqueria, a Brazilian self-defense school and Ed's Gourmet, a restaurant owned by Korean-born Eddie Ha.

On any afternoon, a visitor to the plaza might hear Arabic, Vietnamese, Hindi, Farsi, Spanish, Hebrew, Mandarin -- and always English. Ha says 90 percent of his customers are white. Even with the growth in non-English-speaking households in Silicon Valley, census data says the number of bilingual Asian and European-language households has grown more since 2000.

Allen Lin says when Chinese merchants ask him to make a sign in Mandarin, he urges them to use English whenever possible.

"I tell them this is still America," Lin said. Often it's not possible to fit both languages on a sign because zoning regulations limit the size, forcing businesses to choose. About 60 percent of Lin's business is Mandarin, but Lin said the split is slowly shifting toward English.

"The higher educated Asian people," he said, "they don't need to rely on the Chinese language to communicate anymore."
 
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#84 ·
I recently visited two new developments adjacent to each other in Milpitas on the west side of 880. As of right now these are the only residential on this side of the freeway. There is a four story apartment complex called Cerano and a for-sale townhome development called Coyote Creek. The apartments are all done (grand opening was last month) and are currently leasing. The townhomes are still under construction but the models are finished and can be toured. I stupidly forgot to take pictures so I'll give you an overhead Google satellite image (which is surprisingly fairly current):



I have mixed feelings about these two projects. Before construction this land was vacant and I think I would have preferred keeping it zoned for commercial use. There was some contention on the city council about approving the re-zoning but in the end the developer got their way. I don't see other residential being constructed on the west side of 880 any time soon so the residents here will be somewhat of an island.

On the other hand this is an awesome location if you work nearby. If you're a Cisco employee looking to buy it doesn't get any closer than this. It's also a short walk or bike ride to the 880/Milpitas light-rail station.

Here's a link to the Cerano Apartments Facebook page that has lots of pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/CeranoApts

Coyote Creek:
http://lyonhomes.com/promotions/coyote-creek/
 
#90 ·
I've conceded before that this is outer suburbs. But you're still not very convincing from an urban perspective. Just because you put mixed development near transit doesn't mean you CAN'T also mandate it a few blocks further away. All you're saying is that Milipitas figures that this whole area is not worth worrying about so let it go as urban unfriendly as possible (closed environment, isolated by monster parking lots). Then toss in some likely ethnic segregation.

Even on the acculturation and integration side, I would argue that where you live is a much better example of a desirable future city: Cupertino and Saratoga (and many other cities) have Chinese stores, markets and restaurants mixed in with mainstream and other ethnic businesses. Encourages some level of acculturation.
 
#91 · (Edited)
For god sakes, dude. It's next to a dump and a busy freeway interchange. Just let it go. If you want to live there then by all means... Milpitas isn't exactly holding this area back. If there was demand for that type of product, I'm sure it would have been proposed by some developer - no shortage of projects happening in more ped friendly areas of town though.

I'm all for density where it makes sense.

FYI Cupertino is not integrated just filled with wealthier Asians so people complain less.
 
#93 ·
I live in Milpitas and totally agree with Thomas' assessment. The McCarthy ranch area is unsuitable for residential. In fact, there is no residential on the west side of 880 from 237 all the way up to the Stevenson Blvd. exit in Newark. The Milpitas portion is especially bad because it's directly downwind from the San Jose sewage treatment plant. If/when the plant is modernized (that topic could be the subject of its own thread) then things may change but until then it's a non-starter.

Pesto,

Using Cupertino as an example of cultural diversity and claiming that Milpitas might be involved with ethnic segregation policy sounds absolutely ridiculous. If anything, Cupertino is even less diverse then Milpitas. Here are the hard numbers:

Source: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0617610.html

Cupertino

White persons, percent, 2010 31.3%
Black persons, percent, 2010 0.6%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2010 0.2%
Asian persons, percent, 2010 63.3%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2010 0.1%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2010 3.3%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2010 3.6%
White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2010 29.3%

Milpitas

White persons, percent, 2010 20.5%
Black persons, percent, 2010 2.9%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2010 0.5%
Asian persons, percent, 2010 62.2%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2010 0.5%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2010 4.6%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2010 16.8%
White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2010 14.6%


Also, doesn't Cupertino, your paragon of a "desirable future city", have it's own enclosed shopping mall called Cupertino Square (Vallco) which is a "closed environment" and "isolated by monster parking lots"?

Plus, referring to Milpitas as the "outer suburbs" reeks of elitism. If that is true, what would you call Saratoga or Los Gatos? the rural country?

Personally, I don't know yet if I'll like the Pacific Mall retail concept. Besides the one rendering and the brief description there isn't any other information on it. It hasn't even been approved yet. However, it does sound interesting because at least it's different. There is plenty of formula and chain retail in Milpitas and the rest of the South Bay so a little variety can't hurt.
 
#95 ·
Thomas claimed that Milpitas was predominantly Asian and used that as an excuse for this project. My comment is that it's possible to be quite heavily Asian without having to revert to closed malls with 600 micro-cubicles and acres of parking to have neighborhoods that Asians feel comfortable with. Your statistics are interesting but off topic.

I have lived and worked in the area for years as well. For sure there is plenty of office, mid to up-market hotels and restaurants in the area. There is also housing a little way off in N. San Jose. I admit that there is none right there; in fact, that's my point.
 
#101 ·
I get that the golf and tennis club property is mostly a blank slate to work worth, but why wouldn't Santa Clara want to focus this type of development in it's current downtown?

When Santana Row was being planned the developer bought and razed the old Town & Country village shopping center to make way for it. I'm not that familiar with Santa Clara's downtown history but could something similar be done with the Franklin Mall? When I drive around that area (I like going to Jasmine Thai :lol:) it seems that there are many surface parking lots and other underused parcels that seem ripe for redevelopment. Nothing around that area seems cohesive, just sort of randomly placed. Or is it more complicated then that?

You would think that with all the existing population plus Santa Clara University the downtown would be more vibrant, like a smaller-scale downtown Palo Alto.
 
#102 ·
It is hard to think of Santa Clara having any sort of Downtown right now. Franklin mall is pretty much just a strip mall at this point. I think they are actually better off starting from scratch and incorporating the new stadium, Light Rail / ACE / Capital Corridor, Great America, the Santa Clara Convention Center, and nearby hotels.
 
#105 ·
Not so sure a football stadium is enough to anchor an entertainment district, unless it doubles as a convention center/ arena where they can host wrestlemanias, final fours and boxing matches ( see Jerry's World).. Most downtowns are anchored by sports arenas and baseball parks that host 100 plus games a year vs football's 8 games and a few monster truck shows here and there. If this new Santana Row on steroids gets built, the Santa Clara convention center and office spaces near by will be the anchor, not Niners stadium. I also agree Downtown Santa Clara needs some love. You have a cal train station near by, bart comming soon and earthquakes and sharks also close by. It's a no brainier to me
 
#106 ·
Don't forget that the football stadium can also host to outdoor music concerts as well... I wonder, though, if the Niners will eventually add a retractable roof to the stadium once it's fully built so that it can bring in even more events to the football stadium through the years.
 
#113 ·
Long ago Great America was thinking about a City Walk area like around Universal. Ideally the entertainment area would go from close to Great America entrance to the 49'ers stadium. From there it could cross the street to the new area.

In this way it would be convenient for people going to Great America and the 49'ers stadium. Unlike Universal CityWalk and Downtown Disney, it wouldn't be dependent on tourists. That area of Santa Clara along with North San Jose has a lot of people working there.
 
#115 ·
I don't think we have good enough weather for a large Downtown Disney sort of thing. That's better for Florida or SoCal. But Santa Teresa Hill's version sounds good if it's aimed at local residents as well as tourists. Once again, football stadiums are active about 10 Sunday afternoons a year and that's it.

More generally, focusing on mega-projects is one of the worst mistakes an already booming area can make. Just focus on servicing and taking advantage of what there already is demand for.
 
#116 ·
Question, though: is there enough housing units in Santa Clara County that warrant such expansions, especially that the HSR will be built through the county in the near future? I mean, I look at mega-projects as both positive and questionable: positive because it will bring in more people, jobs, and economic activity to areas that were once had limited growth. The double-edged sword is, how much residential units will need to be built to have a "surplus", in which homes can be handed out to potential buyers at cheaper rates, and will the growth be sustainable in the long-run?
 
#118 ·
According to The Milpitas Post, a pedestrian bridge over Montague Expressway connecting BART to the Great mall is in the planning stages. Cost is estimated to be $7 million.

To that end, VTA proposes to help the city with preparation of a 2013 grant application to One Bay Area Governments, or OBAG, for design of a pedestrian bridge crossing over Montague Expressway from the planned parking garage for the Milpitas BART Station to the northeast corner
of the intersection at Piper Drive, and, preparation of a 2017 grant application to OBAG for construction of this bridge, reports state.
Full article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/milpitas/ci_23098309/city-sacrifices-park-space-accommodate-bart-milpitas
 
#119 ·
The state Department of Finance released their annual city and county population estimates today. According to the press release Santa Clara County was the fasting growing county at 1.6%, and the Bay Area overall was the fastest growing region.

Press Release (PDF):
www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-1/documents/E-1_2013_Press_Release.pdf

This is the first time that I can personally remember the Bay Area and the South Bay in particular topping other areas as the fastest growing. In the past it has always been the Inland Empire or parts of the Central Valley leading in population growth.


Here is a link to the DOF home page that has links to Excel tables with lots of stats:
http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-1/view.php

One interesting thing I learned from looking at the tables is that there are an amazing 69 cities in California with populations of over 100k! Another 13 are between 90 and 100k.
 
#121 ·
Boston Properties, Kilroy Realty execs on San Jose: Not so much

They are selling the building at San Carlos and Almaden. They said that they are not seeing the downtown activity that they expected and rethinking the property that is entitled for 3 office buildings.

Personally I've always felt they were just waiting for a large tenant for the three buildings and then they would build it. I never felt like they would really trying to make something happen on their own. In that sense, it is definitely better that they sell the property and let someone else develop the property. They bought the property in 2002.

It does seem that the downtown San Jose area has mostly been treated as an area for traditional companies and jobs like banks, accounting firms, lawyers, marketing, etc. Two of the newer office buildings (Sobrato and Rivermark II) were built to be leased to a single tenant until they were finally opened up to more than a single tenant.

I've been to tech meetups in the South of Market area of San Francisco and there are a lot of small tech companies in the high rises there. I wonder if it would be more successful to develop new office buildings in downtown San Jose that cater to many small high tech companies. You could add common amenities that high tech companies might like that would differentiate the new buildings from the other buildings downtown.
 
#122 ·
Agree with everything except the last paragraph. That was tried in downtown LA, which is growing rapidly in population, apartments, restaurants and nightlife, but has not worked out. Like in the Bay Area with SF and Silicon Valley, people are chosing to live there but to work in the low-rise, less dense Westside, where the tech companies are going. Tech employees seem to prefer low-rise, easy access by car and plenty of open-space, with on-premises food and amenities.

SF tends to have small companies; some really just a couple of guys with an idea. The spaces are small and if they get real funding or acquired, they are moved to where rents are cheaper. It's no surprise that the office boom is in suburban office parks.
 
#123 ·
Are rentals passé? Trumark chief on why for-sale is taking off

I thought this was a very interesting interview with the co-founder of Trumark, which currently has development sites in Milpitas and San Jose.

Are rentals passé? Trumark chief on why for-sale is taking off


Nathan Donato-WeinsteinReal Estate Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal Email | Twitter
Trumark Homes is so bullish on the region's for-sale housing prospects, it now counts a backlog of roughly 2,000 developable lots in Silicon Valley and is actively looking for more.
The company, a division of Danville-based the Trumark Cos., just started construction on a 134-unit community in Milpitas called PACE. It is also working on a 94-unit townhouse project in East San Jose, dubbed Centered on Capital.
Trumark is no stranger to the Bay Area housing market, with more than 20 years of active development experience here. But it's poised for increased activity as the rental trend of the last few years makes room for more for-sale development. In a sign of how far the market has come, it's even now exploring entering markets in the Sacramento area and Arizona — once major "bust" areas.
"We feel as though apartments are in the seventh or eighth inning," Michael Maples, co-founder and managing member of Trumark Cos. "Good sites will still do really well, but we feel in Silicon Valley and Downtown San Francisco, there's a swing back to for-sale."
I caught up with Maples by phone recently. In the following interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Maples talks about current projects, market trends, density and how to get projects approved.
Your Milpitas project includes a rarity in the Bay Area: Single-family detached homes, in addition to attached townhouse. How did you get approval for that?
It's very difficult to find a development where you can do single family detached in the Bay Area. By doing higher-density townhouses, we were able to meet the city's density requirement and do some single family detached. I think we brought a solution that was a good balance for the property.
How does the density requirements affect the kind of homes you're building?
We're pushing more people into three-story product. Because the footprint is smaller, most of the living space happens on the second floor. We've come up with innovative product to make it feel larger: For example, on living spaces, we're doing larger decks that are 12-feet deep and 20-feet wide. And we'll have a sliding glass bifold door that opens to a 12-foot opening. You've just extended your living room to an outdoor area.
What's driving the interest in sale product?
The Millennials are bigger than the baby boom population. They're at the point where they want to start buying homes. During the recession, people bundled up -- they lived with people they didn't want to live with, and got apartments. Now in some places, it's cheaper to own than you can rent. And with the pricing going up, it's allowing certain people already in the market to get above water on their mortgages, allowing them to buy something new.
What's going on with pricing?
In last six months, everyone's been shocked at how much appreciation has come back to the market. We think in the next 24 months there will be significant price appreciation and then normalize to 2-4 percent a year. We could easily see 10-plus percent this year and next.
We don't want to get way ahead and create a bubble. We're doing a catch up. As long as we don't let it get out of control and over-swing the market, there will be a catch-up, then a pause.
What concerns you?
We're always worried about global events, but in Silicon Valley and San Francisco the tech market has been strong. If you add a national recovery, the pressure on the Bay Area will be very significant.
Do you ever worry about oversupply?
It would be almost impossible to oversupply the Bay Area. We could overprice the product in the Bay Area and create a problem.
The Bay Area isn't an easy entitlement environment. What is your approach?
We look at it from four perspectives: First, what does the neighborhood want? What does the city want? What does the marketplace want? And fourth, what can you get financed? All need to come together to make it work.
(With city and neighborhood concerns), we try to listen well and make realistic changes to make something better. If you don't listen and aren't authentic, people see through that pretty quick. Sometimes we get into the middle and feel we won't be able to get there. And we don't move it forward. Sometimes you listen and realize this isn't the best thing here. You have to listen and bring new ideas and work together.
Link to article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/n....html?page=all
 
#124 ·
Tech Workers Ignite Silicon Valley Building Boom
Santa Clara County leads the Silicon Valley building boom with 8,000 units under construction and an additional 3,100 in the near-term pipeline, said Garrick Brown, director of research for real estate services firm Cassidy Turley of Northern California.

"This is the largest amount of construction we've seen there in 20 years of tracking," Brown said. Assuming three-quarters of the new units are apartments -- with the rest being condos -- the new construction represents a 5 percent growth in a market with about 116,000 existing units, he said. "Ordinarily 2 percent would be considered strong growth," Brown said. "Anything over that is quite rare."
 
#125 ·
New building at Mission College

I had a chance to visit Mission College in Santa Clara recently so I took some pictures of the new building currently under construction. It is nearing completion and the plan is for it to be occupied starting in the 2014 spring semester.

Once the move is complete the temporary trailers being used as portable classrooms will be removed. Eventually, the plan is to build a second new building at the site where the trailers are now. Once this second building is complete then the current "Main Building" in the middle of the campus can be torn down. That area will then be used as open space to create a more traditional "quad" for the campus.

The Main Building has not aged well at all. It might have looked cool back in the 70's but it is horribly outdated and functionally obsolete. If you have ever attended a class there you know how bad it is.

Anywhere, here are some shots of the new building (click thumbnails for bigger pictures):









Link to live construction cam:
http://webcampub.multivista.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=webcampub.page&wcpp=15e4484e-da66-405c-8eb1-51bc7b4c32ee
 
#127 ·
^^

Milipitas housing boom! Newest project nets city 600 units

Integral Communities is so bullish on the booming Milpitas housing market, it's moving forward with a large new mixed-use project two years after biting off a 23-acre site next door.

The new 600-unit development, which is also slated to include about 60,000 square feet of retail space, is just the latest example of mushrooming interest in converting older industrial properties in the area centered around the city's planned Bay Area Rapid Transit station near the Great Mall. Two weeks ago, I wrote about Citation Homes grabbing a 5.6-acre site where it is planning 381 units.

"With BART coming down and (Valley Transportation Authority) already there, it made sense for that area to become higher density residential and get rid of R&D, single-story tilt-up stuff that's there," said Glenn Brown, vice president of entitlements for Integral. "The elements are there as far as transportation and economics."

Integral's new project is called "Centre Point" and would be located on an L-shaped parcel along Centre Pointe Drive that is currently home to four older R&D buildings owned by an affiliate of the California State Teachers Retirement System. Integral is in contract to purchase them.

Integral's plan is for 604 units and 56,000 square feet of retail space. The biggest chunk -- about 350 units and the retail component -- would be built in a mixed-use building facing Great Mall Parkway. Those units would likely be rental. Several other three-story condo buildings would be developed going down the spine of Centre Point. The total density is about 40 units to the acre.

Integral will likely seek a buyer or partner for the project, though it is capable of building on its own, Brown said.

The Centre Point project is adjacent to Integral's "The District," a planned community of more than 1,300 units on a sprawling 23 acres that runs along McCandless Drive at Great Mall Parkway.

Homebuilder Taylor Morrison purchased the southern half of the project from Integral and is moving forward with construction on 200 units. Integral still controls the northern half of the project.

Milpitas several years go implemented a new planning district that encouraged high-density housing near the planned BART station. So far, 3,700 new housing units have been approved. The plan allows for some 7,000 units in the area. Hundreds of units are in construction and builders seem to be pulling the trigger on new ones every week or so.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/...re-housing-on-tap-for-milipitas.html?page=all
Site:

 
#131 ·
Lenders Back $600MM in Projects with Pau’s Sand Hill Despite Litigation


Cupertino Main Street

Peninsula-based real estate developer Peter Pau and his Sand Hill Property Co. have gained entitlements for and expect to construct more than $600 million in Silicon Valley development including a 180-room Marriott Residence Inn and 260,000 square feet of offices in Cupertino, home of Apple Inc. and a near-zero office-vacancy rate.

The projects include the $330 million mixed-use Main Street Cupertino on an 18-acre former Hewlett-Packard Co. site that has been the object of intense developer interest and community angst for a decade; a $37 million conversion of a senior living facility to a hotel in Menlo Park; and the first, $140 million phase of The Grove, a newly approved Los Gatos office complex leased to Netflix Inc.

According to multiple sources, Pau has faced an onslaught of questions and skepticism from lenders in the last three years after a high-profile legal battle over the Sunnyvale Town Center pitted the company and developer against two of the nation’s largest banks, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America. The litigation remains unresolved and is paused as the parties wait for answers from a state appellate court.

Now, Pau and others said, he is gaining backing for his projects from regional and international lenders and capital partners. “In 2011 and 2012, so many lenders said, ‘I won’t do business with Peter Pau.’ Even now every time we get financing we have to explain Sunnyvale Town Center. Some lenders will do business with you and others don’t.”

The New York branch of Natixis S.A., a publicly traded French asset management company, in July agreed to lend two limited liability companies controlled by Sand Hill $25.5 million, according to property records on file with the Santa Clara County Clerk Recorder. The money, along with $12 million in equity from Sand Hill, is to convert a Menlo Park retirement community just east of El Camino Real into a 138-room Marriott Residence Inn. The property is designed for extended-stay travelers with suites, kitchens and separate sleeping and work areas.
 
#132 ·
It appears the county's plans for the civic center redevelopment are moving right along:

Santa Clara County to Mull Plans to Develop 55-Acre Civic Center

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will consider next week a proposal to deal exclusively with two major companies to develop the county's 55-acre civic center in midtown San Jose.
The board's Finance and Government Operations Committee has recommended the county enter into negotiations with Lowe Enterprises of Los Angeles and Gensler, architects based in San Francisco, to finalize a plan to build the Santa Clara County Civic Center Campus.
Supervisors Ken Yeager and Dave Cortese voted last Thursday to have the full board consider at its Sept. 24 meeting whether to prepare an exclusive negotiating agreement with Lowe and Gensler and begin finalizing business terms for the campus development.
Full article:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loca...o-Develop-55-Acre-Civic-Center-224014201.html
 
#133 · (Edited)
The civic center redevelopment got me thinking again about the possible relocation of the Elmwood county jail in Milpitas. I dug up an old article from last year talking about this:

Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese last week proposed all or part of the 2,500-bed Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas be relocated elsewhere in the county perhaps to a site near the old San Jose City Hall in downtown San Jose or to a more rural area.
On May 22, Cortese, whose district covers Milpitas, initiated a work-study plan for county officials to discuss alternatives for the future of Elmwood at 701 S. Abel St.
"As with other parts of the county, the area around Elmwood has developed and built up to a point where housing tracts and businesses are located very close. For the most part, Milpitas and Elmwood have co-existed well together," Cortese's May 22 written statement reads. "In the long term, this proximity might prove problematic. In order to prepare for that point in time the board should have a discussion through this scope of work and subsequent report."
His request related to the ongoing Santa Clara County Civic Center Master Plan Study, which includes study of the potential reuse of the former San Jose City Hall site near North First Street (recently acquired by the county from City of San Jose as part of a payment plan over redevelopment agency monies owed to the county), would also see a parallel feasibility study to relocate Elmwood jail out of Milpitas.
Full article:

http://www.mercurynews.com/milpitas...or-wants-county-mull-milpitas-jail-relocation

As far as I know this article was the last reference to the topic. If anyone has newer information please feel free to share it.

Expanding at the Civic Center makes sense since all the other services are already there, like the courthouse, county administration, sheriffs, SJPD, etc. Right now Sheriff buses run up and down 880 every day shuttling inmates between Elmwood and the Civic Center so all that activity would be eliminated.

On the other hand no one wants a jail built anywhere near them so I can understand the appeal of building it in a rural area. What does everyone think about closing Elmwood and expanding the main jail at the Civic Center? Or would it be better to build a new jail in a more rural part of the county?
 
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