A preliminary proposal filed with San Jose city planners calls for a seven-story apartment building with 110 residential units near two of the city's biggest shopping destinations. The project would rise at 2858 Stevens Creek Boulevard, just blocks from Westfield Valley Fair and Santana Row, replacing a two-story commercial building and surface parking lot that currently occupy the site.
The development parcel spans 0.8 acres, according to The Mercury News, which reports that the existing commercial building measures 16,900 square feet. Anthony Ho filed the initial proposal, and the paper notes the project is tied to Gratus Ventures, a firm based in Milpitas. It remains unclear whether any of the 110 planned units would be set aside as affordable housing — the plans filed with the city do not specify an affordability component either way.
San José’s inclusionary housing rules apply to residential developments of 10 or more units, and the city lists several ways to meet the obligation, including providing affordable homes on-site or off-site or paying an in-lieu fee. The City Council approved changes to the ordinance on January 27, 2026, including a revised on-site requirement for rental developments. That framework means the preliminary filing’s silence on affordable units does not, by itself, establish how the project will satisfy the city’s requirements; the city’s ordinance overview describes the available compliance paths.
Santa Clara County documents cited in the same report show Gratus Ventures paid $6.5 million for the property in April 2025, laying the groundwork for the redevelopment pitch now before planners. The filing is still in its early stages, and the Mercury News account does not address a construction timeline, financing details, or how far the project has moved through the city's review process.
Part of a Wider Stevens Creek Building Boom
The proposal lands amid a broader wave of housing activity along the Stevens Creek corridor. Other housing development proposals have emerged in west San Jose in recent years, the outlet's reporting notes, as developers eye the area's proximity to retail hubs and transit.
The site is near the Santana Row/Valley Fair area, which San José’s planning framework treats as an Urban Village intended to direct growth toward walkable districts with access to existing infrastructure and services. The adopted village plan sets a capacity of 2,635 additional homes for the area—not a project-by-project target—and identifies housing as part of a broader mix with commercial space and jobs. The city’s Santana Row/Valley Fair Urban Village Plan therefore provides a longer-range planning context for proposals near the retail centers.
One of the more advanced examples sits just down the road. A development at 3896 Stevens Creek Boulevard has already received final city approval and is expected to create 575 apartments, per a separate Mercury News report from July. That project calls for two eight-story buildings — one with 264 units, the other with 311 — after plans were upsized from a prior count of 532 units. An estimated 29 of those 575 units will be restricted to people at very low income levels, and the developers intend to bulldoze the existing structures on site, including the Hokkaido Buffet restaurant, the report states.
Revised plans for that nearby project also include 13,600 square feet of retail space and roughly 25,000 square feet of amenity space. The project's footprint has been described differently across sources: the Mercury News puts the site at 4.7 acres, while a City of San José project page lists it as approximately 4.8 acres.
Related Local Activity
Separately, the City of San José has posted notice of an upcoming City Council action tied to a tax and fee waiver request for the 3896 Stevens Creek Boulevard residential development, according to a city information memorandum. Elsewhere along the corridor, a Boston-based private equity firm and a major Western apartment developer have teamed up to add hundreds of rental units, according to a report from The Registry Northern California Real Estate.
