San Jose housing tower with 300-plus apartments nears final city OK
SAN JOSE — A downtown San Jose housing tower with hundreds of units is poised to receive final city approval, a project that might add an office building once the now-moribund Bay Area office market revives.
The residential highrise could sprout near the corner of Terraine Street and Bassett Street alongside State Route 87 in San Jose, documents on file with city officials show.
The 17-story tower could add 345 apartments at 323 Terraine Street, according to the proposal from a development alliance of three real estate firms, Canada-based Westbank, Urban Community, led by Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga; and Terrascape, headed up by Tony Arreola and Mark Lazzarini.
The project would be built on a 1.6-acre site in a downtown San Jose neighborhood known as North San Pedro.
At one point, embattled China-based developer Z&L Properties had been eyeing a housing project on that site.
But as is the case with nearly every endeavor that Z&L Properties has proposed in San Jose, that project never broke ground.
In 2021, the Westbank, Urban Community and Terrascape group paid Z&L $11.4 million to buy the prime site.
The project developers also envision street-level retail spaces that would total 12,200 square feet.
The proposal is slated to receive final approval at a March 27 administrative hearing that city planners have scheduled.
In addition to the housing, the project’s first phase would include a nine-story parking garage that could accommodate 621 vehicle spaces.
The Westbank-led development group also has proposed an office building on the site, which would be constructed in the latter phases of the development.
The office building envisioned for the second phase would total 210,000 square feet and would be produced through a conversion of the parking garage into offices.
However, given the brutal state of the Bay Area office market, it’s unclear when that unusual garage-to-office conversion might occur.