Milestone and Allied pitch senior “arts colony” in San Jose

103-unit affordable housing project would be geared to low-income and homeless seniors

Milestone Housing Group's Steve Massei and Abode Services Louis Chicoine with 934-948 East Santa Clara Street (Milestone Housing Group, Abode Services, KTGY)
Milestone Housing Group's Steve Massei and Abode Services Louis Chicoine with 934-948 East Santa Clara Street (Milestone Housing Group, Abode Services, KTGY)

Two local developers aim to build more than 100 affordable apartments for seniors in an “arts colony” in Downtown San Jose.

Milestone Housing Group, based in Los Gatos, and Allied Housing, a nonprofit developer based in Fremont, have filed plans to build the six-story complex at 934-948 East Santa Clara Street, the San Jose Mercury News reported. It would replace two single-story commercial buildings.

The project, dubbed Milestone Arts Colony, would be restricted to residents aged 55 and older. An initial project called for 99 affordable apartments and 2,500 feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants.

Plans call for a 103-unit building, of which 60 percent would be studios and the remainder would be one-bedroom units. The housing would be geared toward extremely low-income and very low-income senior households, as well as homeless seniors.

Some 52 units would serve as permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless residents, arranged through the Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Services.

The ground floor of the complex would include a business center, conference room, community room, property management and resident service offices, a common-area kitchen and pantry for a food distribution program, along with a mail room with private parcel lockers.

Residents would have access to a computer room as well as job training tools such as iPads.

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The entire complex would revolve around the arts, according to its developers. Art therapy would serve residents with mental health issues.

“Our strategy is to collaborate with the Roosevelt Community Center and a local nonprofit artist group to provide creative arts classes related to painting, watercolor and color pen and pencil design within our ground-floor amenity space,” Milestone said in its proposal.

The colony, designed by Los Angeles-based KTGY, would feature a building broken into offset sections in white, charcoal and brown, with vertical windows and a mural facing one wall.

The developers intend to pursue city, county and state financing for the project, according to the Mercury News.

Milestone Housing, founded in 2019, has developed three housing projects in San Jose and single residential projects in Livermore, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz, according to its website.

Allied Housing is a supportive housing development unit of Fremont-based Abode Services, led by Louis Chicoine, which claims to be the largest homeless housing and services provider in the Bay Area. https://www.abodeservices.org/supportive-housing-development

— Dana Bartholomew

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