San José Development News

5328868 Views 33308 Replies 240 Participants Last post by dirt patch, 20 h ago

edsg25

Discussion Starter · Feb 10, 2006 (Edited by Moderator)

San Jose Development News

San Jose Skyline Panoramic by SkylineScenes (Bill Cobb), on Flickr

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Will downtown San Jose ever develop the type of height and density of the downtowns in San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento?

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flubuk

· #27,621 · Dec 17, 2020

Grad at night

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dirt patch

· #27,622 · Dec 17, 2020

Miro: crane is being dismantled

dirt patch

· #27,623 · Dec 17, 2020

Sparta: portion of the project is basically 7 story high already in form of partial steel erection.

siliconvalleyjoe

· #27,624 · Dec 17, 2020 (Edited)

5

Thought I'd share some pics to give some inspiration for you architect admirers during this rough time. These are interiors of the new iChina restaurant at Valley Fair. Designer does some very slick stuff that you can see on his company site at www.hhd.hk. International Hong Kong designer that has over 200 people with projects as far as Burj Dubai top floor design. Wish he can lend a hand to other projects in Silicon Valley. Hope when the pandemic is over that we can all see this eye candy complete.

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Davodd

· #27,625 · Dec 17, 2020

aphelion2100 said:
A fascinating new mixed use development proposal adjacent to the CIty Hall Rotunda

Just a hunch, but I think this proposal has great potential to be very successful. A great place for attorneys to have offices directly adjacent to City Hall.

Trying to figure out why attorneys would rather have an office close to City Hall rather than a courthouse.

Seems to me these would be ideal for tech startups who want offices in a building with character and within waking distance to restaurants.

mattj08

· #27,626 · Dec 17, 2020

siliconvalleyjoe said:
Thought I'd share some pics to give some inspiration for you architect admirers during this rough time. These are interiors of the new iChina restaurant at Valley Fair. Designer does some very slick stuff that you can see on his company site at www.hhd.hk. International Hong Kong designer that has over 200 people with projects as far as Burj Dubai top floor design. Wish he can lend a hand to other projects in Silicon Valley. Hope when the pandemic is over that we can all see this eye candy complete.

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Thanks for sharing these photos, @siliconvalleyjoe, I dig the aesthetic quite a bit.

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AbsAbhya8

· #27,627 · Dec 17, 2020

sanjosespotlight.com

Airport panel rejects San Jose's Diridon, Google project plans - San José Spotlight

A critical airport commission unanimously voted against San Jose’s Diridon plan and Google’s downtown megacampus, taking issue with proposed building heights that would disrupt the city’s international airport. Santa Clara County Airport Land Use Commissioner Glenn Hendricks admonished San Jose...

sanjosespotlight.com

SCC Airport Land Use Commission rejects Google plans.

Needs a 2/3 vote by the SJ Planning Commission or City Council to overrule, with a 45 day notice of intention to overrule provided.

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dirt patch

· #27,628 · Dec 17, 2020

AbsAbhya8 said:
Airport panel rejects San Jose's Diridon, Google project plans - San José Spotlight

A critical airport commission unanimously voted against San Jose’s Diridon plan and Google’s downtown megacampus, taking issue with proposed building heights that would disrupt the city’s international airport. Santa Clara County Airport Land Use Commissioner Glenn Hendricks admonished San Jose...

sanjosespotlight.com

SCC Airport Land Use Commission rejects Google plans.

Needs a 2/3 vote by the SJ Planning Commission or City Council to overrule, with a 45 day notice of intention to overrule provided.

The airport commission has a point: city screwed up! They should have moved the airport to Moffett Field and build a super dense Chicago style downtown core with Google in Downtown West and very tall towers east of 87. Choice: either have a close international airport to downtown with height restrictions and possibly no Google or a world class downtown with Google and international airport being at least 20 miles away. Simple equation. Anything other than that: stupidity.

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dirt patch

· #27,629 · Dec 17, 2020

Hate to say, "I told you so: Google will not build campus downtown due to very complicated project."

Dirk_Birkin

· #27,630 · Dec 17, 2020

the second crane is going up at 200 park this morning. i really wish they would give us a webcam on this site. has anyone been by recently to see how far they've progressed?

flubuk

· #27,631 · Dec 17, 2020

Crane at Miro disassembling itself today. Field trip if you’re curious how that’s done.

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Sharkcity

· #27,632 · Dec 17, 2020

Davodd said:
Trying to figure out why attorneys would rather have an office close to City Hall rather than a courthouse.

Seems to me these would be ideal for tech startups who want offices in a building with character and within waking distance to restaurants.

Lawyers often lobby city officials on behalf of clients (developers, tech companies, etc.) and there is also the US Patent Office at city hall. Very few lawyers and lawsuits actually spend time in court.

dirt patch said:
The airport commission has a point: city screwed up! They should have moved the airport to Moffett Field and build a super dense Chicago style downtown core with Google in Downtown West and very tall towers east of 87. Choice: either have a close international airport to downtown with height restrictions and possibly no Google or a world class downtown with Google and international airport being at least 20 miles away. Simple equation. Anything other than that: stupidity.

San Jose really needs to take over Moffett and use it for international flights. They can keep domestic at SJC and connect the two via high speed shuttle along the 101 ROW. North county wants low rise development, so an international airport is perfect there. San Jose should also extend runway 12R/30L across De La Cruz Blvd onto the obsolete radar plot. SJ city and SJC need to be visionary, not reactive.

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surrill

· #27,633 · Dec 17, 2020

Sharkcity said:
Lawyers often lobby city officials on behalf of clients (developers, tech companies, etc.) and there is also the US Patent Office at city hall. Very few lawyers and lawsuits actually spend time in court.

San Jose really needs to take over Moffett and use it for international flights. They can keep domestic at SJC and connect the two via high speed shuttle along the 101 ROW. North county wants low rise development, so an international airport is perfect there. San Jose should also extend runway 12R/30L across De La Cruz Blvd onto the obsolete radar plot. SJ city and SJC need to be visionary, not reactive.

Why not relocate all ops to Moffet? Maybe SJ can do a land swap with NASA. They can lease SJC to google for research and Moffet can be a full blown intl airport.
This is all very frustrating. The SJC kills everything

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AbsAbhya8

· #27,634 · Dec 17, 2020

surrill said:
Why not relocate all ops to Moffet? Maybe SJ can do a land swap with NASA. They can lease SJC to google for research and Moffet can be a full blown intl airport.
This is all very frustrating. The SJC kills everything

NASA won't like it cuz all of their research facilities/Ames are located at Moffett

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CAAndrew

· #27,635 · Dec 17, 2020

Sharkcity said:
San Jose really needs to take over Moffett and use it for international flights. They can keep domestic at SJC and connect the two via high speed shuttle along the 101 ROW.

The idealistic rail fan in me loves the idea of a high-speed, point-to-point shuttle. The numbers guy in me, though, struggles to see how this wouldn't be a horrifically expensive boondoggle.

As for having, effectively, two major operating airports so close, that would be an ATC nightmare. And that assumes the idea would survive CEQA and litigation from mountain view and its residents.

CAAndrew

· #27,636 · Dec 17, 2020

surrill said:
This is all very frustrating. The SJC kills everything

Can we blame all this on a known quantity, though? While it is frustrating for all of us here, it didn't seem like the county airport commission was being unpredictable, unprofessional, or unreasonable.

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Dirk_Birkin

· #27,637 · Dec 17, 2020

AbsAbhya8 said:
Airport panel rejects San Jose's Diridon, Google project plans - San José Spotlight

A critical airport commission unanimously voted against San Jose’s Diridon plan and Google’s downtown megacampus, taking issue with proposed building heights that would disrupt the city’s international airport. Santa Clara County Airport Land Use Commissioner Glenn Hendricks admonished San Jose...

sanjosespotlight.com

SCC Airport Land Use Commission rejects Google plans.

Needs a 2/3 vote by the SJ Planning Commission or City Council to overrule, with a 45 day notice of intention to overrule provided.

sounds to me like a bunch of lazy county commissioners didn't do their due diligence and were looking for the city planners to spoon feed them the information they're looking for. these issues were all discussed at length prior to the city approving the new height limits. remember that these are county employees attempting to dictate terms to the city and the city owned airport. i don't see a problem with the planning commission getting that 2/3 vote and telling them to f right off.

Sharkcity said:
San Jose really needs to take over Moffett and use it for international flights. They can keep domestic at SJC and connect the two via high speed shuttle along the 101 ROW. North county wants low rise development, so an international airport is perfect there. San Jose should also extend runway 12R/30L across De La Cruz Blvd onto the obsolete radar plot. SJ city and SJC need to be visionary, not reactive.

if the county is so concerned with how the city operates its airport and the development around it, they should be the ones to pay for the moffett expansion. this seems like an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to me.

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aphelion2100

· #27,638 · Dec 17, 2020 (Edited)

Housing authority buys north San Jose office building for HQ

www.mercurynews.com

Housing authority buys north San Jose office building for HQ

The Santa Clara County Housing Authority has bought a building at 3553 N. First St. in San Jose where the agency will establish its headquarters.

www.mercurynews.com

www.mercurynews.com

The Housing Authority has bought a building at 3553 N. First St. in San Jose, according to Santa Clara County public documents that were filed on Dec. 16.

The just-purchased building was occupied at one point by the Silicon Valley operations of China-based tech firm, LeEco.

LeEco, a formerly high-flying tech and consumer electronics giant that nose-dived in 2017, chopped at least 300 jobs in San Jose and eventually shut the doors of its North First Street offices.

The Housing Authority at one point had been planning to move its head offices to a redevelopment site in downtown San Jose at 675 E. Santa Clara St. The Housing Authority had been planning a mixed-use village of offices, homes, and retail at the downtown site.

Now, the county’s purchase of the offices on North First Street leaves the prospects for the downtown San Jose village development somewhat unclear.

Redevelopment of the downtown San Jose site as a mixed-use village would have cost about $90 million, Housing Authority staffers estimat

Now that the Housing Authority has secured their new location in N.S.J., maybe they should now consider selling the downtown location on E. Santa Clara St. to a private developer so that it can be developed much more quickly. The E.Santa Clara St. site has the potential to be developed into something that can reinvigorate that part of downtown that's been in decline ever since the demise of the San Jose Medical Center. If the County
is allowed to sit on the E. Santa Clara St. site, it's likely to be sitting there with no activity for a very long time --like the SC. County fairgrounds redevelopment proposals.

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aphelion2100

· #27,639 · Dec 17, 2020 (Edited)

Dirk_Birkin said:
sounds to me like a bunch of lazy county commissioners didn't do their due diligence and were looking for the city planners to spoon feed them the information they're looking for. these issues were all discussed at length prior to the city approving the new height limits. remember that these are county employees attempting to dictate terms to the city and the city owned airport. i don't see a problem with the planning commission getting that 2/3 vote and telling them to f right off.

if the county is so concerned with how the city operates its airport and the development around it, they should be the ones to pay for the moffett expansion. this seems like an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to me.

The Airport Commission's decision is really not surprising though given their previous expressed concerns over the high rise Google Project that was discussed in San Jose's request for increased high limits above that area of DTSJ. Bottom line is that the Google Project is likely to proceed with a lot of huffing & puffing on all sides until the project is ultimately completed over the next decade plus.

Also, forget about international flights out of Moffett Field which will never happen given the massive outcry that would occur from our richer North County cousins in Palo Alto, Atherton, etc. These affluent suburbs would be in court fighting this tooth & nail similar to how Trump is filing one lawsuit after another to try & stay in office. Those peninsula cities would drag San Jose into court & tie this up for decades by which time, the Google Village Project will have been completed.

In addition, S.F. International & Oakland Airport in the past like almost 50 years ago strongly vetoed any ideas about regular commercial airline flights out of Moffett Field due to conflicting flight patterns from their own airports that would create increased hazzards for their own takeoff & landings. With greatly increased air traffic 50 years later, the hazzards are even much greater today.
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After reading this N.Y. Times article about Google, it may make you realize that this could be the biggest threat to Google's future expansion plans by far then any other minor annoyances like the Airport Commission.

The anti-trust investigations into Google by the Feds & individual U.S. States could put a damper on Google something akin to what happened with AT&T when the Feds forced the breakup of that company into Baby Bells many decades ago; Hopefully it won't come to that, but instead it will be resolved the way that Microsoft resolved their case with the Feds years ago buy agreeing to pay a hefty fine along with some other terms of their settlement that luckily for Microsoft didn't impact their long term viability.

www.nytimes.com

Google’s Legal Peril Grows in Face of Third Antitrust Suit (Published 2020)

More than 30 states said that the company downplayed websites that let users search for information in specialized areas.

www.nytimes.com

Gene Munster, a longtime technology analyst and a managing partner at Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm in Minneapolis, said he doesn’t expect consumers to abandon Google products, but that the brand of Google as a company has taken a hit.

“For the public perception of Google, it’s a black eye. They’re no longer able to portray themselves as the ‘don’t be evil’ company,” said Mr. Munster. “I think they are squarely in the camp of a tech company that consumers are more suspicious about today than they were five years ago.”
Tom Miller, the Democratic attorney general of Iowa, who signed unto Thursday’s suit, reflected on the case’s similarities with the federal and state lawsuits against Microsoft. Mr. Miller was a state attorney leading the states’ charge against Microsoft.

He said that although Microsoft settled charges, years of litigation from the late 1980s to the early 1990s clearly forced the company to correct its anticompetitive business practices. He said antitrust action, which could stretch on for years in courts, can help encourage more competition no matter the results of litigation.
“Some people argue that if we had not brought the case” against Microsoft, Mr. Miller said, “there would not have been a Google.”

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aphelion2100

· #27,640 · Dec 17, 2020

2

Another Affordable Housing Proposal near the Little Portugal area of greater downtown S.J.

Turning two SFH's into 38 affordable units sounds like a good idea.

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