Construction Underway For El Paseo de Saratoga, San Jose

El Paseo housing, rendering by Solomon Cordwell BuenzEl Paseo housing, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Construction is progressing forward for the El Paseo de Saratoga urban village project in San Jose. Demolition crews have cleared much of the former commercial stores that will soon be replaced by over seven hundred homes and a residential care facility. Sand Hill Property Company is leading the project, working in partnership with Holland Partners and Sunrise Senior Living.

Demolition crews are clearing surface parking and the big box stores on the western third of the El Paseo de Saratoga shopping center, around 1312 El Paseo de Saratoga. The low-slung office building at 1777 Saratoga Avenue is expected to be demolished as part of the master plan. San Jose approved the amended plans for El Paseo de Saratoga in December last year, cutting 325 units and significantly reducing the affordable housing capacity from the previously approved entitlements.

El Paseo de Saratoga demolition progress with Mount Hamilton looming in the background, image by author

El Paseo de Saratoga demolition progress with Mount Hamilton looming in the background, image by author

El Paseo senior assisted living facility, rendering by Lantz Boggio Architects

El Paseo senior assisted living facility, rendering by Lantz Boggio Architects

Full build-out of the Urban Village will create 772 apartments, a 263-bed senior care facility, and a grocery store. The site will now include just 39 units of affordable housing, a significant decrease from previous iterations. In response to this, the South Bay activist group Catalyze SV said, “This decision is extremely disappointing. Our members strongly support building on-site, integrated, affordable housing.”

The tallest structure is expected to be 12 stories tall, containing 398 apartments and 14,140 square feet of retail. The second-tallest building will rise ten floors with 374 apartments and 17,450 square feet of ground-level retail. Opposite Saratoga Avenue, the El Paseo senior assisted living facility will rise seven floors. Building 3 will be a single-story grocery store to be occupied by Whole Foods. Landscaping and public courtyards will provide access to open space across the site, with pathways around each structure leading to a park along Quito Road.

El Paseo site map, illustration by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

El Paseo site map, illustration by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

El Paseo de Saratoga signage, image by author

El Paseo de Saratoga signage, image by author

El Paseo de Saratoga demolition progress, image by author

El Paseo de Saratoga demolition progress, image by author

El Paseo redevelopment seen from the El Paseo shopping center surface parking lot, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

El Paseo redevelopment seen from the El Paseo shopping center surface parking lot, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Solomon Cordwell Buenz and Lantz Boggio Architects are responsible for the design. The two larger apartments feature floor-to-ceiling windows articulated with white metal panels. The senior living facility will be designed by Lantz Boggio Architects with floor-to-ceiling windows, balconies, and brick veneer.

The roughly ten-acre property is located along Saratoga Avenue and the Lawrence Expressway, close to Westgate Center. Future residents will be about 45 minutes from the Sunnyvale Caltrain Station via bus.

El Paseo Whole Foods box store, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

El Paseo Whole Foods box store, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Construction is expected to take nearly four years from groundbreaking to completion, though an estimate for groundbreaking has yet to be shared.

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5 Comments on "Construction Underway For El Paseo de Saratoga, San Jose"

  1. To the folks in San Jose City Hall who are setting the per-acre density requirements. DO BETTER!!!

    “….build-out of the Urban Village will create 772 apartments…the roughly ten-acre property is located along Saratoga Avenue and the Lawrence Expressway.”

    Please start to advocate for the requirement of swapping underutilized parking lots and single-story buildings with high-density neighborhoods. This is a 10-acre parcel. Just Crazy!!

    • Urbanization is a great goal and I absolutely can’t stand single-story box stores + parking lots, but you also need to be realistic in this rapid transformation.

      This site is only served by buses. Majority of folks aren’t going to be using the buses to get to jobs/activities/the city. Caltrain and BART corridors are where to maximize capacity. Without dedicated BRT or current expansion of transit, you’re going to lose many supporters in already hostile region to development as traffic becomes more burdensome.

      Hate to be a Debbie downer, but you need gradual density. Going from single family to high rise is not a good look. Most cities that miss the middle and go straight up have their own host of issues.

      • This site is surrounded on most sides by existing mid-century dingbat style apartments already and many multi-family buildings are able to integrate larger buildings into single family neighborhoods by ringing the buildings with townhomes, so a denser development wouldn’t really have an impact on the existing neighborhood character. As far as traffic, this area has a lot of commercial businesses walking distance from this site, new residents will be able to walk to a variety of retail businesses and area close enough to tech campuses like Apple headquarters that a short bus ride would be a viable alternative to a car. The only reason this area isn’t walkable now is because of the surrounding single family density. Not to mention the fact that the massive boulevards surrounding this site could easily accommodate a few thousand new cars from this site if there were more residents.

    • You always have the choice to either feel good about what progress there is or gripe about there not being more.

      First of all, I’m not sure why you’re blaming City Hall when it’s the developer who reduced the density of the project. Go back and look at the previous articles about this project. Density is great, but if a developer can’t finance the larger project in the current economic climate, then the options are either build less or build nothing hoping a bigger project is feasible later.

      Also, the reason it’s a 10-acre site is because the rest is a shopping center the developer hasn’t proposed to redevelop at this point. Maybe that’s because they have long-term leases, e.g. with the likes of REI, so they may be just developing the part that makes economic sense right now and might come back and do more later.

      All that is to say, I’ll take it.

  2. Good! This is a low-density hell, and a shopping complex that has been half-empty for a decade.

    It is near Lawrence Expressway, so bus service can increase easily.

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