SAN JOSE — An affordable housing complex could sprout on part of a San Jose site where several hundred homes of all types are being planned near a BART station, city documents show.
The proposal for affordable homes would be located at 1655 Berryessa Road in San Jose, a short distance from the Berryessa BART station.
Site plan with the location of a 260-unit affordable housing development, shown within the outline, that is part of a larger residential project at 1655 Berryessa Road in San Jose. (HMH Engineers)
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San Jose-based Swenson, a veteran Bay Area real estate firm, will develop the affordable housing in a section of a 13-acre site owned by San Jose’s Facchino Family where 600-plus residences of varying types are planned.
“Swenson is working with the city to help expedite the creation of a 260-unit affordable housing community,” the development and property investment firm stated in a comment it emailed to this news organization.
The affordable residences are part of the Facchino Neighborhood within the Berryessa BART Urban Village in northeast San Jose, according to The Schoennauer Co., which is providing land-use consulting services in connection with the project.
“The key objective is to get 260 affordable units out of the ground as soon as possible,” said Erik Schoennauer, a principal executive with Schoennauer Co.
The project would produce an estimated 646 residences, including the affordable homes.
The various residential units would consist of a seven-story apartment building totaling 338 market-rate units, the 260 affordable homes in a six-story apartment building and 48 townhomes and single-family detached homes.
KB Homes will develop the portion of the site where townhouses and detached single-family homes would sprout.
A development partner has yet to emerge for the 338 units of market-rate apartments, according to Schoennauer.
It’s possible that more housing could rise on a section of the development that fronts directly on Berryessa Road.
When the proposal to develop the site first emerged four years ago in early 2021, the project would have included a large office and commercial building next to Berryessa Road.
The meltdown of the office market in the years after the coronavirus outbreak, however, rendered a speculative office development unfeasible.
Plus, the section of the project where the affordable homes would be built was at one point being eyed as a project consisting of several hundred “micro” units that would have been rented.
Lenders, however, were reluctant to finance this sort of unusual project and the developer that had proposed the micro homes dropped out of the project.
Swenson has now come on board with a conventional approach to developing affordable homes on the site.
“We are making adjustments to the affordable housing design and layout to improve the chances of securing funding for the affordable housing,” Schoennaeur said.
