The behemoth development across the street from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara has received a key nod from city officials to help it move forward.
The City Council approved a general plan change for Related Santa Clara to rezone about 98 acres of office space to light industrial in the 240-acre project. The vote was split 4-3, with Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Councilmembers Kelly Cox, Albert Gonzalez and Karen Hardy voting yes, and Councilmembers Raj Chahal, Suds Jain and Kevin Park voting no.
Representatives from developers Related California said the demand for office spaces has been low, so the change to light industrial will be necessary to meet market conditions.
“Our new master plan still maintains that vision of the mixed-use city center, but it adapts to today’s market environment by making the northeast campus industrial R&D uses while densifying the city center with more offices,” Related California Chief Operating Officer Nick Vanderboom said at the meeting.
The project is located right across Tasman Drive from Levi’s Stadium. The developers are planning to build an entire community from the ground up, adding 1,680 new homes and 800,000 square feet of space for retail, restaurants and entertainment.
It’s split into five sections — the proposed 5 million-square-foot city center is mostly contained in parcel 4, which will bring more retail, homes and offices. Parcels 1 and 2 would change from office to light industrial, totaling about 98 acres east of Lafayette Street.
The shift away from office space comes as commercial vacancies maintain their post-pandemic highs, and the region’s return to office rate remains among the nation’s slowest. A December 2024 study from Joint Venture Silicon Valley and commercial real estate firm JLL Silicon Valley found office vacancies have been exceptionally high, though the report also found an increasing demand for research and industrial spaces.
This was the city council’s first time to consider the nearly decade-old project in about a year, and opinions were mixed. Gonzalez, who represents the district Related Santa Clara is located in, said the restaurants and businesses in the city center will bring benefits.
He said Santa Clara’s northern neighborhoods have historically been food deserts. A Safeway moved into the Rivermark complex about two decades ago, alleviating some of the food access worries, but Gonzalez said his district needs resources to keep up with the area’s growth in housing density.
“I’m glad that we got it to this approval stage we’re at now, and hopefully they can get everything in line to move forward with it,” Gonzalez told San José Spotlight. “As more residences are built in District 1, we’re going to need more than just a Safeway.”
While residents will benefit in the future, Chahal said those boons don’t measure up to the project’s size. He said the developer’s agreement didn’t give the city enough benefits. Related has a 99-year ground lease for the entire project, and leasing rates vary per parcel.
Allowing Related to build light industrial also opens the door for data centers. Chahal said the project’s developer agreement didn’t have the same protections required in the city’s Climate Action Plan, which mandates all data centers be carbon-free. Jain proposed an alternative motion at the meeting to levy that requirement on the project, but it failed to pass.
“That was a big point for me too, on one way we are trying to be sustainable and trying to adhere to the Climate Action Plan, and here we are,” Chahal told San José Spotlight. “Despite giving them so much other benefits, we are not ready to put the condition on them that all their data centers had to be clean.”
The biggest benefit Chahal sees with the project is the mixed-use city center, but given the project’s slow start and rising costs of construction, he said he didn’t know when that would happen.
Related has about three years to begin work on parcels 1 and 2, and representatives said the changes will help get the ball rolling.
“We are pleased to have received approval from the Santa Clara City Council for the amendment to the master community plan,” a spokesperson for Related California told San José Spotlight. “We remain committed to the city of Santa Clara and look forward to continuing our work with local, county and state stakeholders to develop Related Santa Clara.”
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X.
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