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Google wants to build up to 500 homes above planned San Jose BART station
Technology giant working to formalize agreement with VTA to obtain air rights above station for project
Google is eyeing up to 500 new homes above a planned BART station in downtown San Jose, according to documents published online a year ago and not previously revealed.
The project contains a portion of the residences and room for shops that Google is allowed to build around Diridon Station, San Jose’s main transit hub, under its planned 80-acre Downtown West. Besides the homes, which would be spread across two highrises, the development also includes 18,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, commercial and service uses as well as up to 125 parking spaces, according to a September 2020 report by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.
The Mercury News earlier reported details of the project.
Google hasn’t yet filed plans with the city of San Jose for the project, and it’s working on completing an agreement with the transport authority that would allow the company to build it above the planned Diridon BART station at and around 574 W. Santa Clara Street, a Google spokesperson told the Mercury News. In October 2020, the VTA board authorized the authority’s general manager to enter a public-private partnership between it and Google for the site of the station.
The agreement gives Google the so-called air rights — the right to develop the empty space above a property — to allow a future transit-oriented development above the station site like the one the company is envisioning. Under the deal, at least 20 percent of the project’s units must be affordable to those making low to very low local median incomes.
Until both sides formalize the agreement, “we don’t have more to share,” Google told the Mercury News.
[The Mercury News] — Matthew Niksa