Revised plans have been filed for the Homestead Shopping Center at 3521 Homestead Road in Santa Clara, Santa Clara County. The updated permits shifts away from the mixed-use campus filed in 2021 and now seek to build a townhome-style residential complex. Waymark Development is responsible for the application.
The recent preliminary application seeks to replace the 5.55-acre strip mall with 153 units available for ownership, achieving a density of 27.5 dwellings per acre. The units will be split between 90 four-story stacked townhomes and 63 three-story townhomes. Across the site, 10% of the residences will be designated as affordable to low-income households and 5% for moderate-income households. Floorplans will range from 1,400 to 2,300 square feet or two to four bedrooms.
While details about the architects for the project have yet to be published, the development style does not often lend itself to unique designs across the Bay Area. Most large townhome-style projects are wood-frame infills furnished with craftsman, ranch-house, or colonial Spanish-style decoration.
Waymark is a California-based developer with offices in San Ramon and Costa Mesa, Orange County. The real estate developer specializes in master planning with townhomes and single-family homes.
The 5.55-acre property is located at the intersection of East Homestead Road and Lawrence Expressway. Future residents will find themselves close to the city border with Cupertino and the Foster-designed Apple Park.
Private equity company Cypress Investments is the property owner via SBH Homestead Properties LLC. The estimated cost and timeline for construction have yet to be shared.
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Good, this low-density complex is an eyesore. It should have been converted to housing 30 years ago.
However, townhouses are not ideal. A dense apartment complex would be better since this is walking distance to Kaiser (where many people work), and even the Apple spaceship.
30 years ago, suburban brick and mortar retail was in its absolute prime. The first tech boom hadn’t even happened. I agree with you in spirit of course, but I don’t think “this should have been done 30 years ago” is a realistic analysis of the situation.
30 years ago, housing was already in shortage, and this is the lowest-density complex imaginable. A super unproductive use of land. If not 30 years, 25. As soon as the Kaiser was kicked off for construction (about 2000), this parcel should have been turned into more dense housing in parallel.
All of this is true. However, you’re basing this off of hindsight. Was “housing shortage” mentioned once in all of Santa Clara County in 1994, before Netscape had even launched and kicked off Tech Boom 1.0? I doubt it. BTW, there was a recession between 1990 and 1995 and Bay Area prices dropped 5% in that time frame. Interest in construction was low. So again, I agree with you, but you saying that people in 1994 were making a huge mistake is based on hindsight only and is an unrealistic comment.
No. The moment that Bay Area housing began to become even more expensive than Los Angeles (which is still much more than other big cities), then a supply-increase campaign should have begun. That means 1995.
Also, as soon as the big Kaiser facility was greenlit (before 2000), this low-slung complex should have been replaced with housing in parallel. This is due to Kaiser, so independent of tech.
Sad to see yet another supermarket being closed, and this was the best Korean supermarket. Previously, it was a Food Barn, then a Cosentino’s, then a health food store.
We already lost the Lucky across the street.
Glad to see that the developer changed their plans to medium density townhomes since the glut of rental housing in that area is has made it impossible to do rental projects.
No developer is going to build a “dense apartment complex” at this time unless it is subsidized housing.
There is no money to be made in “dense apartment complexes.” Rents are static or declining and a huge amount of rental housing in Santa Clara, begin during the pandemic, has just come on the market or is almost complete.
I would also like to see the 10-acre grocery store complex on the other side of Homestead demolished and turned into housing too.
The surface parking lot at Kaiser was stupid, given how recently Kaiser was built. They have to build another multilevel parking lot on that surface, ideally.
Too bad. That is a nice active retail space, with stores my family visits weekly. Guess we will need to drive further for our kimchi.
Good, we need more family friendly housing like townhomes in the area.
I prefer the idea of ownership and townhouses. It promotes long time residences which in turn are good for our neighborhoods communities and schools.
Yes, all that is true. But the real reason you’re seeing so many developers pivoting to townhomes is because current rents don’t support apartment projects. The oversupply of market-rate rental apartments in Silicon Valley is reaching epidemic proportions so no developer wants to build more.
Oversupply? Then why isn’t rent falling to 2019 levels at least?
Because “the law of supply and demand” is not an actual law. When the supply of housing goes up it does not automatically mean that prices come down. Property owners see no benefit in a price war, they’d rather leave units empty than having all the existing tenants demanding rent reductions.
For new developments, the bank financing will specify minimum rents that can be charged. Instead of rent reductions you’re seeing “incentives” like “eight weeks free rent,” i.e.see livepradoDOTcom “Now Offering 8 Weeks Free,” which essentially is an 15.4% rent reduction.
Then the tenant has to decide whether or not to go through the hassle and expense of moving after one year in order to get another incentive.
The bottom line is that the only new projects moving forward now are for-sale projects, mainly townhouses, because apartments don’t pencil out financially.
This is the perfect project for that location diagonal from Kaiser. While most people would prefer a single-family home, many will settle for a townhouse. This project is still too dense, with the stacked configuration, but that site may be in Santa Clara’s Housing Element at 25 units per acre or more so they aren’t allowed to reduce the density.
I love futures grocery retails and shopping centers and malls.
I always love futures grocery retails and shopping centers and malls.
We are losing so much retail due to rezoning. Zoning was designed so every piece of land isn’t changed to the most profitable use at a given point in time.
If you look at Housing Elements in the Bay Area, there are hundreds of retail sites that are being rezoned for housing. People will now have to drive further to shop for groceries and other necessities.
The only thing saving us right now is that developers don’t want to build a lot more housing because the rents don’t support the land and construction costs. But this development on Homestead and Lawrence will be profitable since it’s for-sale townhomes which will sell for enough for the developer to move forward.
Keep all grocery stores in the futures.
With the advent of grocery delivery it seems to make no difference how far away the stores are from your home. Brick and mortar grocery stores are slowly dying and I see many closing.