Westbank, Urban Community Eye Downtown San Jose Project

Westbank and Urban Community have created a leafy look for three, 30-story housing towers planned for Downtown San Jose.

The Canada- and locally based developers unveiled new drawings depicting stories of trees outside 1,147 homes proposed at 300 South First Street and 345 South Second Street, in the SoFa District, the San Jose Mercury News reported. A three-story office building would be demolished.

The plan, introduced last month, replaces a 2021 proposal to build two 10-story towers with more than 1 million square feet of offices and shops at a property known as the Valley Title site.

The revised proposal would construct three housing highrises near South First and East San Carlos streets in the heart of the hip South First Area.

The pivot from residential to offices comes during a collapse of the office market following a tech-led shift to remote work. At the same time, Westbank and Urban Community have hedged their bets by leaving the option of building two, 20-story office and retail towers on the table.

The residential project, designed by Los Angeles-based Steinberg Hart, includes what appears to be two rectangular towers fronting a cylindrical highrise, with balconies containing a small forest of trees and shrubs, according to renderings.

It’s not clear if the 301-foot-tall towers would contain rental apartments or for-sale condominiums, or both.

The housing would be built atop 8,400 square feet of shops and restaurants, plus a ground-floor courtyard and gym, according to project plans reviewed by the Mercury News.

A cost and timeline for its development were undisclosed.

Westbank, a major property owner in Downtown San Jose led by Ian Gillespie, has made it clear it wants to push forward with large projects, with a pivot from offices to homes.

In August, Westbank traded an approved plan for a 14-story office building in Downtown San Jose for an 18-story residential tower at 255 West Julian Street.

Then the developer drew revised plans to build a 21-story tower with 768 apartments at 35 South Second Street. The proposal nixed plans by Westbank and Urban Community to build a 750,000-square-foot tower with 194 apartments and 368,000 square feet of offices.

In March, Westbank, Urban Community and Terrascape Ventures were poised to get final approval for a 17-story, 345-unit apartment highrise at 23 Terraine Street, in San Jose’s North San Pedro.

A few months before that, Westbank and Urban Community were poised to break ground on a 540-unit apartment tower at 409 South Second Street, in the SoFa district. It’s one of three environmentally friendly tower proposals by the joint venture in Downtown.

Westbank and Urban Community have begun converting the century-old, 13-story Bank of Italy building into as many as 150 units at 12 South First Street. The Mediterranean Revival and Beaux-Arts landmark, designed by Henry Minton, was built in 1926 for the Bank of Italy, the forerunner of Bank of America.

— Dana Bartholomew