SAN JOSE — A housing tower that would produce several hundred residences in downtown San Jose could break ground during the first half of 2024, offering some rays of hope amid a gloomy Bay Area real estate market.
The project is known as Orchard Residential and would be built on the site of the former Bo Town restaurant in downtown San Jose’s trendy and hip SoFA district, according to one of the project’s developers.
Canada-based Westbank, a renowned major developer with a global reach, and San Jose-based Urban Community, a Bay Area developer, have teamed up to build the housing tower in San Jose.
The housing highrise is being planned for a site at 409 South Second Street in San Jose. If built, the tower would be an eye-catching addition to the city’s skyline.
Gary Dillabough, a partner and principal executive with Urban Community, provided an update regarding the Orchard Residential project during a speech on Jan. 3 to the San Jose Rotary Club.
“Bo Town, which is at Second and San Salvador, we’ll be breaking ground on that in the next few months,” Dillabough said.
The tower would be a major addition to San Jose’s SoFA district, a hub of arts, entertainment, restaurants, bars, nightspots, clubs and live theater.
The highrise is expected to contain 540 residential units, documents on file with city planners show.
Orchard Residential would be developed on the site of the former Bo Town restaurant, a dining mainstay on South Second Street until it closed permanently in 2019.
Westbank has proposed the development of several projects in downtown San Jose.
A revamp of the historic Bank of Italy building, a landmark tower, is part of Westbank’s plans for the area.
Westbank and Urban Community are putting the finishing touches on plans to convert the office tower at 12 South First Street to a housing high-rise.
Roughly 125 to 150 residential units could be produced by the conversion of the Bank of Italy highrise to housing, Dillabough estimated.
None of the brand-new projects proposed by Westbank have reached the point of vertical construction or even the excavation for a foundation.
This is one of the reasons why the construction of a new housing tower on the old Bo Town property is deemed to be a crucial set forward in efforts to revive the struggling downtown district.