Green Valley, Pacific Housing Buy San Jose Land for Housing

The fate of a long-held property near the Berryessa BART station in San Jose is coming into focus.

Green Valley Corporation and Pacific Housing acquired a triangular slice of a 13-acre site at 1655 Berryessa Road for roughly $15 million, setting the stage for a 260-unit affordable project dubbed Berryessa Family Apartments, Mercury News reported.

The deal ends decades of ownership by the Facchino family, which bought the property in 1972 after building its roots in San Jose’s trucking industry. The buyers also secured $130.5 million in financing through the California Municipal Finance Authority, with Wilmington Trust now holding the note.

In 2023, developer Rob Facchino proposed building a combination of up to 820 homes, apartments, condos and townhouses as well as 455,000 square feet of commercial space for office or retail tenants. The latest proposal from Green Valley and Pacific Housing is a scaled-back version of that proposal focusing on multifamily housing rather than mixed-use.

Of the 260 apartments, 257 are slated for rent at below-market rates, with three set aside for market-rate manager housing. The residences would consist of 93 one-bedroom units, 102 two-bedrooms and 65 three-bedrooms, targeting families earning between 30 percent and 70 percent of area median income.

Santa Clara County’s median income was $136,650 for a single-person household and $195,200 for a family of four as of last year, putting qualifying income ranges well below prevailing market rents. That would limit renters’ incomes to between $40,995 and $95,655 for a one-person household or from $58,560 to $136,640 for a household of four.

The proposal is expected to “deliver badly needed affordable housing within walking distance to the Berryessa BART station,” Ralph Borelli, a San Jose-based real estate executive who arranged the transaction, told Mercury News. Last month, The Sobrato Organization and Pacific West Communities were the latest to join the push for affordable housing in the city, filing preliminary plans for a fully affordable 173-unit housing development at 143 South Third Street. — Chris Malone Méndez