SAN JOSE — A bold plan to remake downtown San Jose into a massive, transit-centered Google village with up to 20,000 new jobs passed its first public test with the City Council approval Tuesday night.
On a 10-1 vote, the Council agreed to negotiate exclusively with Google to sell 16 city-owned parcels to the search giant.
“This is a once-in-a-century opportunity” for San Jose, Kim Walesh, the city’s economic development director, told the council. “This is a dramatic opportunity to expand the downtown core westward.”
But labor leaders, housing advocates and others urged the council to ensure that the proposed project brings benefits for the entire community in a region already struggling with traffic and high housing costs.
“We have a chance to get it right,” Doug Bloch, political director with Teamsters Joint Council No. 7, told the council. “The Teamsters are not here to obstruct. The project has to be for all of San Jose and not a select few.”
If construction of the project receives its final approval, Google would build between 6 million and 8 million square feet of offices and other spaces in the Diridon Station area.
“Google shares the city’s vision,” Mark Golan, a Google vice president of real estate services for Northern California, told the council.
On Tuesday, the council was being asked to enter into the exclusive negotiations with Google for the properties, which would be part of its proposed development. Council member Donald Rocha cast the lone dissenting vote. The government-owned parcels, all near Diridon Station and SAP Center, would be part of a transit village and mega tech campus for Google.
The transit village would generate millions of dollars in tax revenue and add thousands of tech jobs in an area where experts have estimated that up to 3,000 housing units could be built, city officials said Tuesday.
“It will mean more local jobs closer to home,” Nanci Klein, the city’s assistant director of economic development, said in a presentation to the council.
Not everyone was as optimistic, however.
Some speakers expressed concern that a Google village could intensify pressure on local residents who are scrambling to find places to live near their workplaces.
“We should ensure that the project does not displace low-income communities or reduce the supply of affordable housing,” said Greg Miller, a San Jose resident.
Independent from Google’s plans, thousands of residential units recently have been completed in the downtown area, and 6,000 more are in the pipeline.
“Extraordinary architecture, urban design, environmental sustainability, retail amenities, transit ridership and vibrant public spaces” would be hallmarks of the Google village, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, the vice mayor and three other City Council members wrote in a letter prepared for Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
They urged the council to approve the exclusive negotiations with Google, whose grand vision for downtown redevelopment aligns with their own. And they urged that the developer undertake an “extensive” community outreach process that would involve local residents, small businesses, faith-based groups and other organizations.
“With major transportation investments on the horizon — including BART, high-speed rail, bus rapid transit, and an electrified Caltrain — Diridon Station will become the ‘Grand Central Station’ of the West Coast,” the mayor and others wrote in their memo to the city.
Various groups of investors have spent a combined $188.5 million buying parking lots, industrial buildings and even some residences in the Diridon Station area.
In September 2015, Trammell Crow — Google’s development partner for the transit village — spent $58.5 million for an 8.3-acre site where the developer intends to build 1 million square feet of offices and 325 apartments.
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However, starting in mid-December of 2016, the pace of the property purchases intensified. Two groups of property investors with connections to Trammel Crow or Google have been buying up properties in the area, which is home to a motley assortment of older industrial sites and other properties. The buyers, operating under the names TC Agoge Associates and Rhyolite Enterprises, have spent a combined $130 million in the acquisition binge. More properties have been optioned by sellers to Trammell Crow or its affiliates.
“I am supportive of Google’s interest in coming to San Jose and expect they will continue to be the great corporate citizen they have shown to be in other communities,” San Jose City Councilman Sergio Jimenez stated in a letter to the City Council. “It is my sense that Google recognizes and appreciates the impacts this project will have on our city.”
Liccardo vowed that the council would listen to community concerns throughout the upcoming process needed before Google can actually break ground on its vast project.
“Google is not in the business of solving the city’s problems,” the mayor said. “Google didn’t cause these problems. These are problems we have to solve.”
Staff writer Ramona Giwargis contributed to this report.
