North Santa Clara is slated for more than a thousand new homes over the next few years, with whole neighborhoods under construction.
The Santa Clara City Council gave its final approval March 25 on a 25.7-acre development at 2518 Mission College Blvd. The project will bring in 1,792 apartments, 268 of which will be affordable to people earning below 100% of the area median income. It will consist of five 5-story buildings and feature a 4.2-acre public park and about 3,500 square feet of retail space. Advocates said the amount of retail is insufficient for the number of residents who will live in the community and should be better balanced to include restaurants, cafes and service needs such as dry cleaners.
The development, called “Santa Clara Park,” is located south of Great America amusement park. It’s part of the city’s plan to develop livable, walkable communities north of Highway 101, near Mission College, Levi’s Stadium and other amenities.
District 1 Councilmember Albert Gonzalez, who represents the city’s northern neighborhoods, said he looks forward to the influx of housing and better utilization of the space. Twelve commercial buildings on the site will be demolished.
“There’s a push to have more housing, and from my perspective and my constituents, (the question) is how do you do that but do it in a manner that works well with people, so they feel like they’re part of it,” Gonzalez told San José Spotlight.
While the housing influx will be a big boon, Catalyze SV Executive Director Alex Shoor said the developers could have planned for more housing by adding another floor or two to the design. Catalyze SV’s members rate housing projects throughout the county and gave Santa Clara Park a 3.45 out of 5, arguing the project could have used the space for more housing and provided more commercial space to create a better walkable community.
“Our members will be very glad to see these homes built, but we also know it was a lost opportunity for an even better project and a lost opportunity for Irvine Company to be responsive to community feedback, to do some relatively straight forward things like add some more retail on the ground floor of some of these buildings,” Shoor told San José Spotlight.
Gonzalez heard from Southern California-based developer Irvine Company that they’re prepared to move forward with construction once the leases for the commercial buildings are up. But there is no official start date.
When reached for comment, Irvine Company referred San José Spotlight to the project’s website.
“We look forward to partnering with the city and community to deliver on this vision to create homes near jobs for local professionals,” Irvine Company Vice President Carlene Matchniff said in a statement on the project’s website.
Residents and advocates spoke in support of the project during its approval hearing, as Santa Clara needs hundreds of more homes to reach state-mandated housing goals. The city needs to build 11,632 homes by 2031, 6,506 of which must be affordable to those earning less than 120% of the area median income.
A few blocks to the east is the densely developed East Tasman neighborhood, and on the west the city is preparing for the 3,600-home Mission Point development to move forward. Shoor said he’s been excited to see Santa Clara’s housing expand, especially since many of these projects create complete walkable communities.
Gonzalez said balancing the increase in housing with the need for retail services will be paramount as the project is build out.
“As long as the infrastructure is set and done correctly … as the community starts to grow, they don’t see the negative impacts, or they minimize the negative impacts, so we can have a community that can work, eat there, play there, really thrive in that area,” he told San José Spotlight.
Story updated April 14 at 10:20 a.m. Original story published April 14 at 8:30 a.m.
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X.
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