Commercial Real Estate Blog

The California High Speed Rail Authority has voted to include San Jose on the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles High Speed Rail that it is planning. The 200MPH rail was voted to travel through San Jose’s Diridon station which at some point is slated to become a stop for VTA, CalTrain,AltaMont, and BART trains.

The cost of the project is $30B and will include $10B of funding coming from state issued bonds which will likely go up for vote in 2008.

Sold, not sold, sold, not sold. Such went the story of The Mitchell Block in San Jose for years. It appears though this time, “sold” just might stick. The Mitchell Block, a 3.6 Acre parcel bound between Santa Clara and St. John streets between First and Market in downtown San Jose has finally sold to the VTA for a reported price tag of about $40M.

Several years ago, the Palladium Group out of New York was reported to have been in negotiations and/or contract to purchase the parcel to convert into a several hundred million dollar entertainment and housing project. The fallout of the local market during the early part of the decade killed that deal.

The VTA intends to use the parcel as a staging area for its construction activities for the next few years. Their are plans on the books for a Bart extension into San Jose but those are at best several years off leaving the parcel to continue in its underutilized state.