Downtown San Jose housing tower edges closer to construction start

SAN JOSE — A downtown San Jose housing tower with an eye-catching design is moving closer to construction now that the project’s developers have requested a building permit for the project, officials confirmed Monday.

The tower is known as The Orchard Residential and is being built in the SoFA district of downtown San Jose by an alliance of mega-developer Westbank and local developer Urban Community, which is headed up by Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga.

The housing highrise would be built at 409 South Second Street on the site of the old Bo Town restaurant, a long-time dining mainstay in San Jose that closed a few years ago.

“We can confirm we have submitted for a building permit for The Orchard Residential (Bo Town) but have not yet received the permit,” Westbank’s development team stated in comments emailed to this news organization.

The Orchard Residential tower would be 30 stories high and contain 540 housing units, along with 7,400 square feet of ground-floor retail in San Jose’s bustling SoFA district.

“I’m thrilled to see Westbank move ahead with their visionary Bo Town project in one of San Jose’s most exciting neighborhoods,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in comments texted to this news organization.

Although the project will bulldoze the existing Bo Town structure, which was built in 1967, Westbank intends to build a brand-new dining establishment on the ground floor that will be incorporated into the housing highrise.

Both the roofline of the street-level restaurant, as well as the upper floor of the tower itself, will feature the distinctive zigzag roof of the original restaurant. This folded plate roofline style was crafted to evoke thoughts of the early years of the Space Age of the 1960s.

“Requesting building permits is a fantastic sign,” said Nanci Klein, San Jose’s economic development director.

The new housing is poised to bolster economic development in downtown San Jose as well as in the SoFA district, a trendy neighborhood dotted with restaurants, cocktail lounges, live theater venues, entertainment spots and art galleries.

“This is great for SoFA and great for the downtown,” Klein said.

City officials believe that new housing towers such as the Westbank project on the Bo Town site can help spur activity in downtown San Jose.

Housing development may become a key factor given the reality that a host of new office projects might not appear in the near future in downtown San Jose and the Bay Area due to economic uncertainties, skyrocketing interest rates, rising prices for building materials and labor, as well as tech industry layoffs that have raised questions about how much office space tech companies will require in the next year or two.

High-density residential projects in the form of housing towers such as The Orchard Residential tower on the Bo Town site will bring hundreds or even thousands more people into the downtown thereby bolstering economic activity.

“You’re going to see foot traffic increase and small businesses and cultural events thrive once again,” Mayor Mahan said.