SAN JOSE — The empty retail spaces at a big San Jose apartment complex could morph into housing units in a fresh effort to covert commercial sites into residences.

The conversions to housing would occur at an apartment complex at 620 North Sixth Street in San Jose’s Japantown district, according to a new proposal. The complex is at the corner of Sixth and Jackson Streets.

Store spaces on the ground floor of the 6th and Jackson Apartments, a 518-unit, six-story residential complex at 620 North Sixth Street in San Jose’s Japantown district. (Google Maps)

Roughly 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space would be converted into 11 residential units, plans on file at San Jose City Hall show.

The ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces are part of the 6th and Jackson Apartments building that is owned by Shea Homes. Shea Homes submitted a preliminary proposal for the housing conversion.

“Minor exterior modifications” are anticipated as a result of the proposal.

The apartment complex is relatively new. Shea Homes developed the apartment complex, completing it in 2022. The six-story development contains 518 units.

In the face of a wobbly retail market, multiple developers have proposed the conversion of ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces into housing so the empty spaces could become productive uses.

The James, a relatively new apartment building in downtown San Jose, is slated to become one of the latest buildings to convert empty commercial space into residences in a quest to meet a steady hunger for housing in the Bay Area.