The once-packed Fry’s Electronics on East Brokaw Road is trading bargain TVs for server racks. Supermicro has started work on the first phase of a multi-building tech campus at the shuttered big-box store at 550 East Brokaw Road in north San Jose. The initial building reuses the old retail shell and adds a larger three-story industrial wing, setting up what the company describes as a new manufacturing and assembly hub in the city.
City planners signed off last May on a roughly 333,400-square-foot, three-story warehouse and manufacturing building that will anchor the new campus, according to city filings. The permit keeps the store’s distinctive Mayan-themed facade while allowing the fresh addition behind it to handle industrial operations and shipping. As reported by GovTech.
An addendum to the site’s Final Environmental Impact Report converts about 209,620 square feet of the existing store into warehouse space and adds roughly 333,360 square feet of new industrial area on part of the 19.7-acre parcel. The revised plan is a major step down from earlier office-heavy concepts that had envisioned nearly two million square feet on the property. Construction of the first phase is expected to take about 18 months from groundbreaking. As outlined by SF YIMBY.
According to city planning documents, the building “will receive shipments of computer components such as motherboards, hard drives, memory cards, cases, and metal racks” for storage and assembly on site, with “approximately 50 employees” expected to be working there at any given time. Those details come directly from Supermicro’s filings with the city, as summarized by GovTech.
Supermicro bought the 19.7-acre property in February 2024 for about $80 million after previously leasing space at the former electronics superstore. The company says the new campus will help expand its U.S.-based manufacturing footprint. Supermicro already runs nearby facilities and earlier turned a former newspaper campus into its headquarters in San Jose. That history and the acquisition were reported by GlobeSt.
Local housing advocates point out that the industrial campus officially closes the book on earlier proposals that called for more than a thousand homes on the site, including an affordable housing component. City leaders, for their part, have leaned into the jobs angle, framing the plan as a manufacturing and employment win for San Jose. In a company release covered by local media, Mayor Matt Mahan called the expansion a boost for “high paying new jobs” and for local manufacturing. That response was summarized by SFGate.
What To Watch Next
Construction activity already appears to be underway on the property, and nearby residents and businesses can expect more trucks and construction traffic as the campus takes shape. Supermicro has not released a detailed public schedule beyond what is in the planning documents, so the pace of work will largely depend on city permitting, inspections, and any needed utility upgrades. For now, recent local coverage and city planning filings offer the clearest public view of how and when the campus might expand into later phases, as reported by the East Bay Times.
