One of the key reasons appears to be a situation with free parking. The parking structure beneath The 88 was owned by the former Redevelopment Agency and the city offered free 2 hour parking for Safeway patrons. Once the lot was sold per legal requirements of the now defunct agency, the city was no longer able to offer free parking and it put the Safeway at a significant disadvantage.
If you dig a little deeper, I don't think the real reason is parking but that there are still not enough people living in Downtown San Jose. Many towers are under construction and once they are built hopefully we will be able to support a Safeway-sized market with or without free parking.
It will be interesting to see how long the space takes to get leased and what will replace the Safeway. It could be an opportunity for something even better, we'll see.
Source: SVBJ
What's with all these thousands of housing units built in the past 20 years? Still not many residents downtown? Am I seeing halos?
ReplyDeleteDowntown San Jose has seen over 10,000 housing built in the area. Not enough residents????
ReplyDeleteHousing =/= units that are occupied with residents... Let's talk about making that housing affordable. I'm sure it'd be filled in no time.
DeleteHas there been a study on whether the condos downtown are occupied? Is there a Google speculation effect where people are buying up the condos with no intention of living in the units, but rather waiting for Google to build their campus in downtown and cash in on the real estate boom?
ReplyDeleteDude, it's not a lack of residents. It's parking...plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteBoth WF and TJ's require parking...even in hard to park areas like DC...it always goes back to parking.
But Trader Joes in DTSF does fine without a private lot.
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