Huge San Jose housing development is eyed at ex-Fry’s Electronics site
SAN JOSE — A huge housing development with several hundred residences could be built on the site that once housed the Fry’s Electronics headquarters and one of the failed retailer’s most iconic stores, city documents show.
The potential residential project also suggests that the site’s owners have ditched their plans for a vast tech campus totaling millions of square feet on the property.
The tech industry’s move to significantly scale back its appetite for new plans for office space in the Bay Area, including Silicon Valley, has made speculative office projects a much less feasible proposition.
Bay West Development, which had proposed an office campus with up to 2 million square feet of office space on the Fry’s site at 550 East Brokaw Road, is now instead pushing forward with a proposal to build residences, including multifamily apartments.
All told, at least 500 residential units — and possibly more than 1,000 housing units — might be built on the Fry’s property, which is on a choice site near the Interchange of Interstate 880 and East Brokaw Road.
The real estate firm has proposed two different versions for developing houses on the property.
The Bay West Development proposal calls for the redevelopment of the entire Fry’s Electronics site in north San Jose, which means an existing store site and warehouse would be bulldozed to clear the way for the project.
Campbell-based Bay West Development officials declined to comment about the company’s proposal.
Separately, Supermicro Computers has leased 124,200 square feet of warehouse space in one of the buildings that eventually would be demolished for the housing development.
It wasn’t immediately clear for how many years Supermicro leased the warehouse space that would eventually be cleared away for the housing project.
Bay West Development proposed two different versions for housing on the site:
— 1,233 residential units, potentially multi-family residential apartments.
— 519 residences of an unspecified type.
The development firm filed separate proposals for each version of the housing it is considering at the Fry’s site. Both of these proposals envision a speedy San Jose city review process as allowed by provisions in state law SB 330.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Bay West Development intends to use a builder’s remedy approach for the proposed housing.
The 550 Brokaw property is the former location of the legendary consumer electronics retailer’s Mayan temple-themed store, along with the company’s headquarters and warehouse facilities.
Fry’s Electronics went out of business for good in February 2021.