News & Press

San Jose’s Park Avenue Revamp Should Start to Take Shape in 2023

By Matthew Niksa – Commercial real estate reporter, Silicon Valley Business Journal

Mar 15, 2021 Updated 2 hours ago

By the end of 2023, plans to revamp the eastern end of San Jose’s Park Avenue and turn it into a pedestrian-friendly block surrounded by a major office center should start to come to fruition.

One of the three projects under development in the area is slated to be completed in the second half of that year. Another is expected to come online about a year later. And at least a portion of the third could be finished by the end of 2024 — if all goes well.

The development is all planned for the one-block stretch of Park Avenue that goes from Almaden Boulevard to Plaza de Cesar Chavez. If everything goes according to plan, that area will eventually be home to eight new office towers, and that stretch of Park Avenue would be transformed into a curbless “garden street” with equal amounts of greenery and pavement.

The end result would be an unrivaled Class A office location in Silicon Valley — and arguably the entire Bay Area, Matthew Lituchy, Jay Paul’s chief investment officer, said in an email.

Two of the three projects in the area are being developed by Jay Paul Co.; Westbank Corp. and Urban Community have teamed up for the other one.

200 Park, named after its street address, is set to be completed first. Under construction since November 2019, the Jay Paul project is a 19-story Class A office tower located on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Almaden Boulevard. It’s the first office building to be constructed downtown in more than a decade without any tenants in tow.

A 19-story Class A office tower, rendered, at 200 Park Ave. in downtown San Jose. On the left side of the rendering is one of six Class A office towers that Jay Paul Co. plans to construct on the site of the existing CityView Plaza across from 200 Park.

Level 10 Construction, 200 Park’s general contractor, has finished pouring its foundation and is now building its four-level underground parking garage. The project is expected to reach street level by June, Lituchy said.

For the tower, Level 10 is using a steel-concrete structural system called SpeedCore, which it expects to slash the time needed to construct 200 Park’s core infrastructure by more than 30%. The building will be the first in California and only the second in the U.S. to use the SpeedCore system for its structural elements, Lituchy said.

“We are fully committed to continue construction of 200 Park and expect to be completed by (the third quarter of) 2023,” Lituchy said in an email.

The development of Park Habitat calls for the demolition of the existing Parkside Hall, San Jose’s first convention center. The joint venture behind Park Habitat began moving utilities out of the property around the start of this year and expects to complete that work by the end of next quarter, Gary Dillabough, co-founder of Urban Community, told the Business Journal in early March. San Jose planning officials are currently reviewing Park Habitat’s formal application.

Although the city hasn’t yet approved the project, Urban Community and Westbank have already retained Build Group to be its lead contractor. Build Group expects to finish constructing Park Habitat in September 2024, according to information the firm submitted in a survey to the Business Journal.

The last project to fill out that stretch of Park Avenue is also the most ambitious.

Across the street from 200 Park and Park Habitat is CityView Plaza, a ten-building, decades-old office park. Last June, the city approved Jay Paul’s plan to demolish nine of those buildings and build six 19-story Class A office towers in their place. Totaling 3.8 million square feet, the planned campus is the largest single office project approved in Silicon Valley to date, bigger even than Apple Park in Cupertino.

Level 10 Construction, the project’s general contractor, has gotten the OK from San Jose’s public works department to move utilities out of the existing plaza, according to the city’s online permit center. The city is now reviewing a grading and drainage permit application for the project, according to the permit center.

Construction may not begin for a bit. Jay Paul hasn’t yet determined the final sequence in which it will build the project, Lituchy said in an email. It’s also awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Preservation Action Council of San Jose under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Jay Paul Co.'s CityView Plaza redevelopment, rendered, with Park Avenue in the foreground. The rendering shows San Jose officials' vision of a heavily planted curbless stretch of Park Avenue, part of a larger plan to create a pedestrian route connecting San Jose State University to the Guadalupe River Park.

That lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court last September, challenges the San Jose City Council’s approval of the project. The case is expected to be decided in June, according to court documents filed in January.

Newmark Executive Vice Chairman Phil Mahoney, Vice Chairman Michael Saign and brokerage services specialist Julia Szabo, all of the firm’s San Jose office, make up the listing team for both 200 Park and the CityView Plaza redevelopment.

Jay Paul and Newmark have begun preliminary marketing efforts for 200 Park, Lituchy said March 3. So far, the project has been well-received by the market, he said.

Newmark has yet to circulate marketing materials for the CityView redevelopment.

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March 15, 2021

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San Jose’s Park Avenue Revamp Should Start to Take Shape in 2023

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