Westbank again swaps offices for apartments in San Jose development

Canadian developer Westbank has extended its pivot from offices to homes in Downtown San Jose.

The Vancouver-based firm led by Ian Gillespie filed revised plans to build a 21-story tower with 768 apartments at 35 South Second Street, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Initial plans filed by Westbank and locally based Urban Community in 2022 had called for a 750,000-square-foot tower with 194 apartments and 368,000 square feet of offices.

The curvilinear tower, known as the Energy Hub for its live foliage top to bottom, was to have 30,800 square feet of retail, including ground-floor shops and restaurants and a gym on the second floor. A four-level basement garage would have served 289 cars. 

The 1.25-acre property next to the bustling restaurant row known as Fountain Alley would have had 22,500 square feet of open space, split between a paseo and a “Fountain Alley” walk.

The base of the building, designed by Denmark-based Bjarke Ingels Group, would include a 10-story arched passage dubbed the Urban Room, with outdoor seating.

Westbank has now torn up some of those plans while the office market has taken a beating from a pandemic shift to remote work. The office vacancy in Downtown San Jose was 35.6 percent in the first quarter, according to Savills. 

It’s not clear whether Urban Community is still involved with the residential project.

“We are excited to have submitted an application for the Energy Hub, with a new majority residential development scheme,” Andrew Jacobson, principal executive for Westbank’s U.S. operations, told the Mercury News.

New plans call for 768 housing units and 10,700 square feet of shops on the ground floor, according to planning documents.

The move comes days after Westbank traded an approved plan for a 14-story office building at 255 West Julian Street in Downtown San Jose for an 18-story residential tower. The revised project, once a joint venture with Urban Community, didn’t mention the local builder.

Westbank also has shifted strategies for the century-old, 13-story Bank of Italy tower at 12 South First Street, in Downtown. The firm and Urban Community had once planned an office renovation.

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But the joint venture has begun converting the building into as many as 150 homes. The Mediterranean Revival and Beaux-Arts landmark, designed by Henry Minton, was built in 1926 for the Bank of Italy, the forerunner of Bank of America. 

In January, Westbank and Urban Community were poised to break ground on a 540-unit apartment tower at 409 South Second Street, in the SoFa district.

— Dana Bartholomew