For a campus-style project, this is exceptional design and I can't wait to see who the tenants are going to be.
Monday, September 17, 2012
n1: North First Campus
This is easily the most impressive office project that is underway right now in Silicon Valley. n1 consists of 1.8 million square feet of office space, tons of outdoor spaces, new cafes, and impressive athletic facilities (check out those rooftop tennis courts in the second to last photo). The entire development is off of North 1st with Component Drive bisecting the project and providing access to parking. There will be a new street called campus way that looks almost like a little downtown street and connects all of the main entrances to each buildings and hopefully some retail. You can see this in the fifth photo. Everything is within a 10min walk to lightrail, providing easy access to Downtown and other companies on First St., Tasman, etc.
For a campus-style project, this is exceptional design and I can't wait to see who the tenants are going to be.
For a campus-style project, this is exceptional design and I can't wait to see who the tenants are going to be.
Imagine if this big sprawling thing was downtown.
ReplyDeleteWow, you're rooting for this horrible suburban style of growth that causes bottleneck on the highways instead of a highrise campus style growth downtown that keeps all the people there and have them work to work from their highrise apartments? What's the matter with those goons(high tech employers/employees)? I thought they(Y Generations) want to be in a urban/downtown setting, not suburban isolated campus setting that causes all those traffic and smog with sterile lifestyle. The city and the employers need to grow in downtown, not North San Jose. Downtown needs all the growth to alleviate the traffic and improve the quality of life in a vibrant urban setting in the area and make it more dynamic and interesting/fun.
ReplyDeleteI would much rather have this located Downtown, but First Street near the golden triangle and Light Rail would be my second choice. Eventually this will be an extension of Downtown and have additional housing so people can work closer to where they work (already some massive housing projects are underway within a few miles from this campus).
DeleteAlso, I'd rather San Jose grab this project than Mountain View or Sunnyvale.
You are spot on Josh. There are thousands of high-end apartments being built within a short light rail ride of this site (which I might add is probably no more than 1 or 1.5 miles from downtown anyway). This will compliment downtown, not detract from it. I just wish MLB would decide on the A's ballpark. I truly believe an additional 81 times (mostly evenings) per year of 30,000+ people heading downtown will do more for San Jose than any office building ... whether it's a campus style or high-rise!
Deletecorrection above walk to work, not work to work.
ReplyDeletecityman,
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you're another tech worker or not, but in general, the majority of tech workers do not like highrise. I currently work in a high rise right now but still prefer the campus that I used to be in before we moved...
Something about those elevator queues just irritate the heck out of me...
I understand, but those horrible campuses don't contribute to the vitality of the neighborhoods and the downtown, in particular. It causes nothing but traffic and loss of precious open spaces. I guess San Jose will always be a suburb, not a major city with a vibrant downtown core. Oh, I do get temped to move to Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago, NY and even Portland since they get it right and do all the right things. Note* Toronto is building 100 highrises in and around downtown and completely abandoning the outer ring of the city and its suburb. The city politicians, and its residents are totally skipping the suburban lifestyle for an exciting downtown urban environment they're creating in Toronto. The 100,000 immigrants, which Toronto gets a year, want to be downtown, according to Toronto city leaders. It's sad that San Jose can't be like that and be exciting, while improving the environment like cleaner air, less traffic, less smoggy days and healthier lifestyle(walking).
Deletecityman,
DeleteTech is THE industry of the Bay Area. And we love campus-style to death. The South Bay has the most open land, and thus was instrumental in it becoming a tech hotbed in the early days, and not SF, northern part of the peninsula, and the East Bay.
So yes, sprawling campus is not to everyone's liking, but it's a great industry that makes a lot of money, and their employees (such as myself) also love the campus designs.
*Sigh* San Jose is a city, NOT a suburb. I think we've already been through this so many times...
The reality is that San Jose is very car-centric due to it having so much land coupled with a not-up-to-snuff public transit system. No matter how much the politicians/leadership want to go all in on urbanization, they still have to be mindful of the fact that San Joseans LOVE their cars, and any urbanization attempts will have to keep the cars and their drivers in perspective as well.
San Jose has pretty clean air, not as bad of traffic as the other cities you mentioned (except for Portland and Seattle), barely any smoggy days, and 53 miles of healthier-lifestyle paved separated bike trails :) It's just up to the people to use them (9/10 San Joseans probably doesn't even know such trails existed...)
Now I come to wonder...maybe it's the people of San Jose that is the problem, and not the airport, the leadership, or the lack of high-rises. I don't mean this towards you cityman, but in general towards the people of San Jose.
DeleteWe have a very suburban attitude, and it's true. We love our cars and fight tooth and nail against anything that would make our car commute more painful (bike lanes, light rail tracks, pedestrian crossings, etc). Heck, like I said, maybe only 5% of San Joseans know of our extensive bike trails, and even then, still would not use it :(
But I don't apologize for that attitude though, it just may very well be the way we are here in the South Bay.
And the people like me or you (cityman) who prefer more urbanization, will just have to come to term with that attitude and way of life...
Bob, I prefer transit and open space over cars and wasteful developments that rob the area of its character(think orchords) They couldn't stuffed all the development downtown with highrises that contained any industry and housing and left the bulk of San Jose and the valley with open lands and farm lands. The development could've been thoughtful to environment and preserve our farmlands by going vertical instead of horizontal. Downtown could've been saved and be more vibrant and taken the load of all the growth. It was horrible planning by city of SJ to act like LA and still act like LA. The agricultural areas could've had trails, too and be preserved. The community could've have saved precious commodities by building towers with smallest amount of open space being used up. I guess I really hate the car culture and the suburban waste of valuable open space.
DeleteUnfortunately, to build 1.8 million square feet downtown would involve constructing REAL high-rises and no downtown airport. The four "towers" of the proposed Boston Properties project would be only 800,000 square feet total. Maybe the height restriction is hurting downtown more than we think...
ReplyDeletecityman - "The city politicians, and its residents are totally skipping the suburban lifestyle for an exciting downtown urban environment they're creating in Toronto."
ReplyDelete^^^That's our problem - the residents and politicians. San Jose lacks a vision and sophistication that the cities you listed definitely have and I'm not sure why. SF's shadow? Suburban mindset? Fear of change? And it's not only San Jose. Look at Santa Clara. I was just 'downtown' Santa Clara the other night. What a joke! It's a college town! Where is the main corridor with retail, bars, cafes, an art house theater, etc. etc.? Such potential there, yet little-to-no change since I can remember.
Santa Clara does not really have a downtown anymore, just a remnant which is Franklin Mall near SCU. There is a retail project on El Camino in Santa Clara which will have downtown elements like a square, and there is potential to do some interesting things around the 49ers stadium, but that's about it.
DeleteAs for San Jose, every city mentioned has 50-150 year head start. San Jose will catch up, but it won't happen over night and a negative attitude won't help.
San Jose will not catch up if they dont put there foot down now and force guidelines that eliminate these types of wasteful developments.
Delete?The city lacks vision"...that is simply not true. Check out the vision for the North 1st street coridoor.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/nsj/
Projects like this are a big part of this plan and these drawings look awesome. Hopefully one day the downtown continues all the way along North 1st steet up to Tasman or even 237. Some one grumbled about cars & traffic...well this is right on the light rail line!!! What more do you guys want?
The city cannot win for trying with some of you guys. A few months ago it came out that some developers were being forced to build high-rises by the city and they decided to go elsewhere - Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, etc. Don't blame the city for what high-tech companies are demanding. Are you complaining about Apple's new HQ in Cupertino? That's a campus style too! And I'll go out on a limb and guess that it includes a (huge) parrking structure for cars.
Should we all just chime in and say how fantastic San Jose is in every project, development, etc? Wouldn't some honest conflict or diverse opinions result in a more productive dialogue? Is that allowed on this blog?
ReplyDeleteDiscourse and diverse opinions are definitely a good thing, but they need to be constructive. If someone posts the equivalent of "SJ sucks, SF will always be better" then the post is going to get pulled. If you're not satisfied with this project, then definitely post the things you don't like about it so we can discuss. For example, I wish there was housing intermixed with the project so that a lot of those green spaces could be utilized in the evenings and weekends.
DeleteConstructive? OK. I hope that this project will include some unique businesses (cafes and restaurants). Please, I beg to the leasing Gods, no more Panera Bread, Pete's Coffee, Premier Pizza, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc., etc. Amen.
DeleteAbsolutely, we have enough national chains. Would love to see some places that will be unique to San Jose, maybe even with a tech twist like iPad menus or some level of interactivity.
DeleteToronto, which I'm from, actually got its acts together in the last 8 years. Before that, the city was in a funk, just like San Jose in in. It took more of a liberal attitude on part of investers/lenders and condo/apt dwellers to get this enormous construction boom going. Vancouver had this boom before Toronto had. The city was beating itself in the head, complaining that Vancouver was properous, and Toronto was left in the dust. Now, it's booming so madly that it's unhealthy for downtown to have so many towering highrises blocking the sunlight reflecting the surface streets. They're building a bunch of 40-70 story towers ranging from offices(which has not seen one getting underway since 1995) to hotels and a ton of condos. A whole new skyline is emerging and maturing by the Sky Dome. It's so exciting but worrisome at the same time. All of this happened in 10 years time or over 15 years time, however you look at. Once the market and people who are involved in real estate decide, an emormous building boom began. In San Jose's case, it probably will not happen for several reasons: 1. heavily suburban attitude 2. More conservative minded real estate investers/lenders 3. Lastly, Fewer wealthy immigrations from Asia and Latin America. In other words, Downtown San Jose will not see new construction until the office and hotel market recover, let alone condo market recovering. Remember, San Jose and Toronto are two different animals. It's ironic since both of them are sprawled out, but Toronto has alot more urban residents than San Jose. The good way of looking at it is that it can take only a few years to be hot, not having 50-150 years head start. That wouldn't be accurate. It takes a change in attitude and market. It's just the matter of the investers pulling the trigger when the market improves and buyers rush in.
ReplyDeleteLet's take a look at Toronto 11 years ago. Even though it is only slightly larger than San Jose in terms of land area, the population was already 2.5 Million. That is more than double the density of SJ today, let alone 11 years ago. In addition to that it already had the 3rd largest public transit system in North America. It's not even close to an apples to apples comparison. Toronto has had a 70 year head-start in urbanization and infrastructure. I will say that San Jose getting BART and potentially a PRT system this decade will be a great start in moving the infrastructure towards the right direction to support true urbanization.
DeleteOn a side note, you're going to have to give me some recommendations on what to see/do in Toronto because you're making me want to go visit.
DeleteJoshua, actually the city went from 595,000 to 2.4 million overnight on January 1, 1998 due to megamerge of Toronto and the surrounding areas. The mayor at the time wanted to consolidate the bulk of the region into expanded Toronto. The city was and is mainly sprawling. If it weren't for the merge, it would be about 700,000 or maybe a little higher due to all the condo explosion in downtown and yorkville area. The city now is so fixated on downtown that they're stuffing all the attraction there and completely ignoring the rest of the city. The merging was almost disasterious for awhile until fairly recently. It was opposed by so many communties, and it was chaotic. Now, things area going smoothly. You know what? I'd say San Jose has a more interesting and fun downtown until the massive downtown in the last years, which changed everything. Yeah, they had a nice skyline, but it was mainly the financial district and the areas toward Yorkville wich is toward the west 2 miles. You had scattered areas of highrises all the way, and you probably seen the picture of it. Now, they've and they are building a bunch of along the way to Yorkville/Midtown, and a whole new skyline has emerged by Skytower, which had only a few around it then. There are so many new intertainment that just opened up, and alot of the musuems have great expansions to give Toronto a world class feel. Most of this happened in the last 15 years. You see, things can change quickly if people decide to make it happen along with market forces. I now highly recommend seing this now awsome city!
DeleteWow, that is one hell of an annexing. That would be like San Jose annexing all of Santa Clara County and then some. I'm trying to get better data on density, but everything I found puts the Toronto density around 10k people per square mile, about double of San Jose. If you have any other info with a lower density, would be interested in learning more. Also, Toronto did have the transit infrastructure in place already to support rapid growth. BART will be San Jose's first subway (3 stations), but we have to start somewhere. Years ago we almost built a Lightrail subway down Santa Clara Street, but the project was deemed to expensive.
DeleteActually, the density of Toronto was around 7,500 people by 1998 when it went from nearly 600,000 to 2.4 million. The area coverage went from 115 sq. miles to 430 miles overnight. It merged the surrounding cities and unincorporate areas to become the megamerged Toronto. It's like San Jose taking over all the area to Redwood City and Fremont literally. With all the highrises downtown and Yorkville(midtown), the density has increased tremedously to over 9,000 people per sq. mile. The population of Toronto is now 2.6 million and rising. If it weren't for the merge, I'd say the population is almost 800,000, more like 770,000. That's still impressive since Toronto was losing people back in the early 90's. Remember, the density has increased because of the surrounding cities Toronto merged was fairly dense, even denser than Toronto itself and along with the enormous amount of construction. The city gets over 100,000 immigrants a year(metro). By the way, most of them want to locate and move downtown. Montreal did the same thing a year later, going from 994,000 to 1,800,000. However, it retreated somewhat do to all the oppositions from residents beyond the island of Montreal, so it only merged all of the island community only and part away from nearby counties away from the island, bringing the pop. down to 1.6 million.
DeleteIn all seriousness, I wonder if it's the blasted airport with its height restrictions that is killing all the high-rise projects...
ReplyDeleteI guess we will just have to work with what we have...sigh...I wish Hamann would have relocated the airport when he was on his annexation spree in the 50's and 60's...unless maybe he knows something we don't...
I think you're right Bob. Its probably a money loser to buy a downtown plot and build only to 15 stories (roughly 250k square feet of office space). As a developer, its probably cheaper to buy and build at n1, where 1 million + square feet is still possible. Nothing we can do about this until mid-century perhaps. In the meantime, downtown should focus on residential (along with associated retail/entertainment) to feed the massive workplace taking shape along n1.
Deleteall over the projects have zero bicycle access. good stuff.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the main street that runs through the project (Campus Way) and connects all of the office lobbies seems to be very bike friendly. Orchard and First St. are also bike accessible and surround the project. To top it off, from Orchard there is going to be a connector path for bikes from the Guadalupe River Trail.
Delete