Hundreds of homes coming to north Santa Clara neighborhood

There’s a near constant cacophony of hammering, drilling and welding near the Great America Amtrak station as Santa Clara builds up its transit-oriented housing.

The Santa Clara City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a tentative map for another project along this busy stretch of the city. The latest development is a 21-floor, 198-condominium complex. The building at 5185 Lafayette St. is part of the city’s massive reimagining of the Tasman East neighborhood near Levi’s Stadium, where the city hopes to add 4,500 homes over the next few years.

The 5185 Lafayette St. complex was proposed by Ensemble Investments, a nationwide real estate developer working on four other projects in the area along Calle Del Mundo. One is set to open later this year while the others are in various stages of construction, planning and permitting.

“Ensemble has had a deep commitment to Santa Clara and Tasman district. This is one more project that we’re excited about,” Rob Gomez, development director for Ensemble Investments, said during the meeting.

Santa Clara has fielded some of the largest development proposals in Silicon Valley as officials work on no less than six separate plans to guide dense growth in various parts of the city. That’s a feat, as the southernmost part of the Bay Area attracts some of the largest tech titans and most prolific developers for the first time.

Gomez said the developer plans on submitting construction documents for the 5185 Lafayette St. project within the coming months. City officials approved the project’s architectural review last October.

The project’s architectural review approval will last for two years, with the option for another two-year extension, city spokesperson Janine De La Vega told San José Spotlight. Construction will have to start within the next four years at least. She added that building permits do not need council approval, and that city workers will review and issue a permit.

The building could house rentable apartments, but Gomez said having buyable condominiums would give greater diversity to the neighborhood’s housing options. The building will have condominiums ranging from studios to three-bedrooms, 310 parking spaces and about 3,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor.

Councilmembers discussed the project’s affordable housing allocation, parking and echoed a concern from resident Ron Patrick, who owns a property near the construction site. Patrick questioned how the new building will receive energy from Silicon Valley Power, the city-owned utility. He cited nearby electrical poles that feed power into the existing buildings and voiced concerns about the electric lines encroaching onto his property.

Chief Electric Utility Officer Manuel Pineda said one of the electrical poles will have to be removed during development, and all power to the building will be underground.

“We do have easements throughout the sites so I can’t say for sure exactly how all the works’ going to work within those easements, when you’re disconnecting and reconnecting,” Pineda said at the meeting. “I’m not going to commit to saying that no work will happen within those easements, but the services for this project that’s proposed today will be underground as part of the project, as we would for any redevelopment in Tasman East.”

Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.