Communications Hill, the hilltop parcel that has drawn developer interest since the 1980s, is being built out under a plan for an urban village, with roughly 2,200 residential homes eventually filling a neighborhood near downtown, Caltrain and VTA lines. The plan calls for a mix of single-family and multi-family housing alongside retail, parks and industrial space, according to city and district records.
A Plan Decades in the Making
The San Jose City Council approved the Communications Hill Specific Plan in 1992, and the project is a high-density urban neighborhood, as described on the City of San José's project page. As San José Spotlight reports, the hill has been viewed as valuable real estate for development since the 1980s, largely because of its location near freeways, Caltrain, VTA and downtown San Jose. The Communications Hill project is also folded into the Envision San José 2040 General Plan, giving it a broader planning framework beyond the original specific plan.
The project has been in ongoing development for years rather than arriving all at once.
What's Actually Planned for the Site
According to the seed reporting, the Communications Hill neighborhood is slated to include roughly 2,200 residential homes covering more than 67,000 square feet, combining single-family and multi-family housing types. The plans also call for 1.44 million square feet of industrial park space, positioning the hill as a mixed-use district rather than a purely residential subdivision.
Beyond housing, the project's construction updates page notes that a retail Village Center is planned for the site, describing it simply: “The Village Center (retail) will be located here,” according to Communications Hill's construction updates page. Public parks are also planned for the neighborhood, and a separate document details proposed park sites. The broader plan also calls for open space and playfields, rounding out the development's recreational offerings alongside its housing and retail components.
Transit and Trail Connections Proposed
The site's planners have also proposed several transportation links tying the hill into the region's existing infrastructure. A new bicycle trail is planned to follow Canoas Creek from the Highway 87 Bikeway to the Blossom Hill VTA Station, per the same account. A pedestrian bridge is also proposed to connect Hillsdale Station Road and the Communications Hill trail with the Capitol Caltrain Station, and the California High-Speed Rail alignment is currently planned to follow the existing Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way through the site, the construction updates page states. The page was last updated on August 3, 2024.
The School Site That Hasn't Broken Ground
A new school within the Franklin-McKinley School District is also envisioned within the Communications Hill project, according to the Franklin-McKinley School District. The district's board passed a resolution in April 2021 declaring its intent to acquire land on the hill from the property owner to build the school, subject to specific requirements. The district completed a letter of intent to acquire that land in September 2021, and by August 2022 it had submitted a final preliminary environmental assessment to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.
Those are the most recent dated milestones available in district records for the school component of the project. San José Spotlight, which produces fact briefs in partnership with Gigafact and is a project of the San José News Bureau, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, published its explainer on the urban village plan on September 23, 2026.
