Site of 294-unit Cupertino housing project changes hands for $81M

A residential project aimed at senior citizens less than two miles from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters that includes affordable housing, may be a step closer to fruition after three different groups acquired the site of a shuttered shopping center and surrounding property.

In two separate deals, the groups paid $80.5 million to buy The Oaks Shopping Center at 21267 Stevens Creek Boulevard and the area around it, the Mercury News reported. Värde Partners, a global alternative investment adviser, was responsible for the larger of the two deals, paying more than $71 million to buy part of the center and some parcels around it. The sale was recorded with the Santa Clara County Clerk-Recorder’s Office on Dec. 29.

Värde bought most of it from KT Urban, which master-planned the redevelopment of The Oaks into a residential community and shepherded those plans through the city’s review process. The firm also agreed to give homebuilder Taylor Morrison the option to buy all of Värde’s The Oaks land until March 31, 2024, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.

The Pacific Companies, which specializes in building homes and charter schools, and the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing acquired a smaller portion of the site for just over $9 million, the Mercury News said. Pacific struck a deal with KT Urban last year to build 48 below-market-rate apartments for seniors, representing less than a fifth of the project’s 294 apartments and for-sale residences.

The development “addresses the housing needs of young families as well as affordable and assisted living units for senior citizens,” KT Urban’s Mark Tersini told the Mercury News.

In addition to the apartments that Pacific is building, the project also includes a 158-unit assisted living facility that will be operated by Related Companies and Atria Senior Living. The facility will have 123 assisted living units, 35 memory care rooms, almost 20,000 square feet of room for shops and restaurants and almost 100,000 square feet of open green space, the Business Journal said. The Cupertino City Council approved changes to the building’s unit mix and a parking reduction, among other modifications, at a Dec. 21 meeting, paving the way for it to break ground.

While much of the redeveloped shopping center site will be rental homes, plans also call for 88 townhomes. That portion of the project received City Council approval in 2020 but hasn’t broken ground yet.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to reflect that the project’s townhome portion has received Cupertino City Council approval. 

[The Mercury News] — Matthew Niksa