Legal action to block huge downtown San Jose complex stays unsettled

SAN JOSE — A legal action to halt the redevelopment of a key block in downtown San Jose remains unsettled and the case is headed towards a final decision in June, court papers show.

At the heart of the legal action is a proposed development that would bulldoze the decades-old CityView Plaza in downtown San Jose and replace it with a modern tech campus that could bring 14,000 or more jobs to the city’s urban core.

The Preservation Action Council of San Jose has raised concerns because project  plans call for the demolition of a Bank of California building. The suit claims the building is an important example of a utilitarian style of architecture called brutalism.

The legal action was filed in September 2020.

“There isn’t a settlement at this point,” San Jose City Attorney Nora Frimann said in an email to this news organization.

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge overseeing the case is awaiting legal briefs from both sides.

“The parties are having discussions,” Susan Brandt-Hawley, an attorney for the Preservation Action Council of San Jose, said in an interview.

The preservationists seek to use the California Environment Quality Act, or CEQA, to challenge the city’s June 2020 decision that approved the CityView redevelopment.

Jay Paul Co., the developer of the CityView project, envisions the development as an iconic addition to downtown San Jose’s modest skyline.

CityView Plaza office complex at a downtown San Jose site bounded by WestSan Fernando Street, South Almaden Boulevard, Park Avenue and South MarketStreet, concept. Gensler 

A big tech company is thought to be a candidate to lease big chunks of CityView Plaza, or the adjacent 200 Park office tower, which Jay Paul Co. is constructing across the street on the south side of Park Avenue.

Once complete, CityView Plaza is expected to total 3.6 million square feet and feature a trio of 19-story office towers, along with 24,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to city documents.

The CityView development site is bounded by Park Avenue, Almaden Boulevard, West San Fernando Street, and South Market Street.

The building at 170 Park Ave., constructed in 1973, is an architectural example of brutalism, a minimalist style that emerged in Great Britain during the 1950s when that nation sought to quickly and inexpensively reconstruct neighborhoods that were shattered during World War II.

“Preservation Action Council of San Jose challenges the City of San Jose’s approval of the CityView Plaza Project, which would needlessly demolish significant historic resources in the guise of progress,” the group stated in its initial court filing.

In an interview in October, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo criticized the actions of the preservationist group. The mayor argued that the building isn’t an architectural marvel.

“They don’t call it ‘brutalist’ architecture for nothing,” Mayor Liccardo said at the time. “It’s the kind of building only a CEQA lawyer could love.”