A 68-unit affordable apartment complex for seniors is set to rise at 700 East Santa Clara Street, just east of downtown San Jose, on land owned by Santa Clara County. Eden Housing is building the project, called Trillium Senior Apartments, as part of a larger 661-unit affordable housing initiative envisioned by the Santa Clara County Housing Authority for the site of a former hospital.
Of Trillium's 68 units, 67 will be set aside as affordable housing along with one manager's residence, according to The Mercury News. Twenty of those units will be reserved as permanent supportive housing for seniors exiting homelessness. The apartments will be available to households earning up to 60% of the area median income, which works out to $86,310 for a one-person household and $123,300 for a household of four — well below Santa Clara County's overall 2026 area median income of $143,850 for one person and $205,500 for a household of four.
IBM's 1943 Card Plant Becomes the Project's Anchor
Trillium's design incorporates the adaptive reuse of Building 800, a structure built in 1943 that once served as IBM's first card manufacturing plant and the company's original West Coast headquarters, according to Eden Housing. Restored space inside the historic building will offer more than 3,000 square feet of community space, free for local neighborhood groups to reserve, opening onto a publicly accessible outdoor plaza.
Trillium sits inside the East Santa Clara Master Plan, a joint initiative led by Santa Clara County and the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, the newspaper reports. The plan calls for a mixed-use, mixed-income community with diverse housing options, flexible office space, retail, and open space, across a site bounded by East Santa Clara Street, North 14th Street, East St. John Street, and North 15th Street.
A 2.8-Acre Phase With More Homes Still to Come
Eden Housing is partnering with The Core Companies to master-develop the 2.8-acre phase of the site that includes Trillium, alongside a planned 114-unit affordable family building and 36 for-sale affordable townhomes, according to Eden Housing. Developers also used California's Senate Bill 35 to secure streamlined environmental and administrative approvals for the 213-unit affordable phase of the project, according to San Francisco YIMBY.
The Trillium site was formerly part of the San Jose Medical Center campus, which closed in December 2004. Santa Clara County purchased the 13.3-acre property in 2010 for $25 million and demolished the old hospital buildings in 2011 to prepare the land for public health facilities and housing redevelopment, according to SV@Home.
Hawthorn Senior Apartments Rising Just Steps Away
Just down the block at 715 East St. John Street, the Santa Clara County Housing Authority broke ground in late 2024 on Hawthorn Senior Apartments, a $76 million, 103-unit affordable senior housing project slated for completion in 2026, according to San Francisco YIMBY.
San Jose's City Council has considered a resolution approving a construction-permanent loan commitment of up to $6.8 million to Eden Housing for the senior development, drawing from the city's Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Asset Fund and Real Property Transfer Tax funds, according to the Assembly USA. Regional affordable housing projects across the county, including several built by Eden Housing, also draw on the county's $950 million Measure A Affordable Housing Bond, approved by voters in 2016 and on track to deliver about 6,600 affordable units countywide — the same bond that helped fund San Jose's Solaire Apartments.
Homelessness Keeps Climbing as Old Retail Complaints Linger
The push for senior supportive housing comes as homelessness across Santa Clara County keeps climbing. The county's 2025 Point-in-Time count found 10,711 people experiencing homelessness, an 8.2% increase from 2023, according to Santa Clara County. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the county tracked 4,028 unhoused households requesting assistance, while only 1,932 were successfully connected to permanent housing.
When county lawmakers approved the East Santa Clara Master Plan back in May 2019, surrounding residents and community leaders publicly criticized the concept for skimping on retail space, pointing to an urgent neighborhood need for walkable commercial options like a grocery store after a nearby downtown Safeway closed, according to San José Spotlight. Whether Trillium's restored community space and public plaza inside Building 800 will satisfy those long-standing requests for neighborhood-serving retail remains an open question.
