Silicon Valley Business Journal
The developers behind Museum Place — downtown San Jose’s most ambitious mixed-use tower — have submitted their first formal plans to the city, showing a revised design and a larger residential and hotel component.
“We basically super-sized everything,” said Dennis Randall, managing director for Insight Realty, which is spearheading the project with China New Era, a Chinese development and investment firm. “It’s a very progressive, very urban plan.”
The new look simplifies some of the sweeping sculptural elements and facade flourishes that Insight showed in a concept design first revealed nearly a year ago. That design helped Insight win a contest to gain control of the property from the city, which is offering up the land in return for a new exhibit hall for the Tech Museum of Innovation.
But the basic elements are there, including layers of landscaped terraces, extensive balconies, and a look and feel that appears different from all angles.
“The changes are all about design and constructability,” Randall said. “You have a lot of Title 24 issues, code requirements. The design we have now takes in all of that, but we are absolutely trying to maintain everything we proposed.”
The new plans include just about every real estate asset class you can imagine. That’s not so uncommon in Asia or major gateway cities like San Francisco or New York, but it’s unlike anything ever attempted in the South Bay. Yet Randall says Insight’s partner, China New Era, has the project fully funded and can start construction as soon as the approvals are received.
The new plans include:
- 213,820 square feet of office space
- 334 condo units (326,000 square feet)
- 143-room hotel (69,224 square feet)
- 12,171 square feet of retail
- 60,000 square feet of expansion space for The Tech on the ground floor and one level underground.
- Three levels of below-grade parking for 1,000 cars (which will be parked valet style, with cars stacked above each other).