San Jose city staff on Friday proposed selling 16 downtown properties to Google, beginning a formal effort to work with the search giant on its plan to build a massive tech campus that would bring…
San Jose city staff Friday proposed selling more than a dozen downtown properties to Google, to help the search giant amass the land it wants for an enormous tech campus that would bring up to 20,000 jobs and transform the Diridon Station area.
Mountain View-based Google would obtain 16 parcels from the city of San Jose and the San Jose Redevelopment Agency’s successor, if the negotiations bear fruit, according to a proposed exclusive-negotiations agreement released by the city on Friday.
The parcels include several properties on South Montgomery between West Santa Clara Street and West San Carlos Street, a parcel near the corner of West San Fernando and South Montgomery streets, a property at the corner of Park Avenue and South Montgomery, a parcel on West San Carlos near South Montgomery, and a parcel near West Julian and North Montgomery streets.
“Google intends to develop a large-scale mixed-use Transit Oriented Development to serve as an office and research campus consistent with a redeveloped Diridon Station Area, ” according to a staff memo prepared for a vote by the San Jose City Council, slated for June 20.
Google and San Jose are discussing a complex that could include more than 6 million square feet of office and research space, potentially making it the company’s largest collection of tech offices. If built, it would be larger than the tech titan’s roughly 3.1-million-square-foot Mountain View headquarters, known as the Googleplex, which currently is its biggest U. S. work hub.
“Google’s interest in potentially laying down roots in San Jose will be transformational to the landscape of downtown and the entire city, ” Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco said earlier this week.
Google’s potential venture into downtown San Jose would re-sculpt the Diridon Station area’s motley collection of properties along and near Autumn and Montgomery streets a short distance from the SAP Center. A portion of the area was once proposed for a baseball stadium, and another section is now targeted for an 8.3-acre, mixed-use office, retail and residential complex planned by developer Trammell Crow.
Google has its eye on an area totaling around 240 acres in this vicinity, including the Trammell Crow acreage, a person familiar with the matter told this newspaper.
“We’ re excited to have the support of the San Jose city council as we evaluate our options at Diridon Station, ” Google said in comments emailed to this news organization.
