Construction is now underway for the affordable housing complex at 3550 El Camino Real in Santa Clara, Santa Clara County. The project will preserve a portion of a former Bella Vista Inn motel while adding a seven-story apartment complex to the site. RCD Housing is the project developer.
Clara Gardens groundbreaking event, image courtesy Santa Clara County
The 72-foot-tall structure is expected to yield around 85,620 square feet, with 7,500 square feet for the 66-car garage and 1,440 square feet for commercial retail. Additional surface parking will be included by Flora Vista Avenue to increase the total site car capacity to 81 vehicles. Parking will be included for 120 bicycles.
The project will include 120 apartments across the site: 64 units for households earning up to 30% of the area’s median income, 55 units for 50% AMI households, and 30 units of permanent supportive housing for individuals transitioning out of homelessness. One apartment will be designated for the on-site property manager.
3550 El Camino Real, rendering by VMWP
3550 El Camino Real site map showing the new and existing building side-by-side, rendering by VMWP
Amenities will include two interconnected courtyards, common rooms, a children’s play area, and a bicycle repair studio. Exterior terraces will provide additional open-air space across the project. Landscaping will improve the sidewalks along both street frontages.
Van Meter Williams Pollack is responsible for the design. Renderings show a typical podium-style building with various colors, materials, and even private decks used to break up the overall massing. Facade materials will include cement plaster, fiber cement panels, random board, wood-look panels, exposed concrete, and other decorative materials.
Prior to construction, the Bella Vista Inn served as temporary housing for ‘people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.’ “Clara Gardens shows what is possible when we refuse to let a vacant motel sit empty while people sleep outside,” said Dan Sawislak, executive director of Resources for Community Development (RCD). “For two years this site was home to people rebuilding their lives, and now we are breaking ground on the permanent, deeply affordable community it was always meant to become.”
3550 El Camino Real former condition, image by Google Satellite
The 1.12-acre site will wrap around the lot of an existing restaurant, with two street frontages along El Camino and Flora Vista Avenue. The surrounding neighborhood is informally known as Santa Clara Koreatown, a vibrant cultural and culinary hub roughly centered around El Camino Real. Future residents will live across from the Lawrence Square Shopping Center and the Lawrence Expressway Plaza.
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