JLL to Open Silicon Valley Office in San Jose’s Santana Row

JLL will soon open its first real estate office in the South Bay.

In July, the Chicago-based brokerage will lease two floors of an office building at 356 Santana Row at the Santana Row retail village in San Jose, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.

Financial terms for the pending three-year lease of 5,400 square feet from Maryland-based Federal Realty Investment Trust, developer of the 42-acre village, were not disclosed.

The lease is expected to begin July 15, with a soft opening after renovations expected in August before a grand opening on Labor Day, according to a JLL executive. The brokerage plans to relocate some employees from its office in Menlo Park to San Jose.

“We just feel the time is right, in order for us to better position ourselves for when the market recovers,” Kirsten Grado, managing director of JLL Silicon Valley, who will make the move, told the Business Journal.

Because JLL doesn’t plan to stay in the office long-term, the brokerage inked a shorter-term lease while it hunts for a larger office.

“As we were expanding into the South Bay, we didn’t want to take more than we needed initially, with the intent that we are going to grow rapidly, hence the shorter-term lease,” Grado told the newspaper.

She said that Santana Row’s community and amenities made the office a good fit.

Santana Row has 50 shops, 30 restaurants, a boutique hotel, 1.1 million square feet of offices, 615 luxury apartments and 219 condominiums, according to its website.

“Companies are saying they want mixed-use, vibrant, walkable spaces where their employees are attracted to come to work, and that’s exactly what we have at Santana Row,” Jan Sweetnam, chief investment officer of Federal Realty, told the Business Journal.

— Dana Bartholomew