Downtown San Jose is witnessing a makeover as The James apartment complex at 98 North First Street aims to flip its vacant retail space into homes. This pivot to residential units from unused commercial square footage comes as traditional office and retail demand takes a nosedive amidst a broader commercial market slump. The Mercury News reports that the 190-unit building is responding to the persistent hunger for housing in the Bay Area by proposing the addition of nine or 10 apartments on the ground floor.
The commercial spaces, totalling a combined 10,800 square feet, sit empty and witnessed by recent on-site observations, as per The Mercury News. The shake-up is driven by the persistent tenant demand with tech companies trimming Bay Area jobs at a staggering rate, reducing their appetite for office spaces, and amplified still by COVID-19's heavy toll on businesses. With the retail spaces at The James lying fallow, plans have been filed with San Jose city planners to create living quarters, and two scenarios are being considered—one with eight studios and a one-bedroom apartment and another with 10 studio units.
In response to these trends, real estate veterans Archway Equities and Virtú Investments, who acquired The James for just shy of $74.3 million in September 2023, are looking at ways to make the best out of a less-than-ideal situation. According to BNN Breaking News, such adaptive strategies are vital for sustaining the economic viability of property investments and spurring urban vitality amid wavering commercial interest.
With the Bay Area mired in a severe housing crisis and downtown areas languishing in the wake of pandemic aftershocks, the initiative by The James to introduce more homes could inject a much-needed boost to downtown San Jose's economic activity. As observed by BNN Breaking, this move mirrors the broader trends across various Bay Area cities where commercial sites are being eyed for residential transformations. It's not just a matter of converting voids left by retail and office sectors; it's also about breathing new life into urban locales that have faced immense strain from shifting economic and health-related upheavals.
