SAN JOSE — The Bo Town restaurant site in downtown San Jose has been bulldozed.
Scorched by multiple fires, the property was teetering on the edge of being a blight and a nuisance in downtown San Jose, in the view of some observers.
An alliance of Canada-based Westbank, a developer with a global reach; and San Jose-based Urban Community, which is led by local real estate executives Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga, have teamed up to propose a housing highrise on the Bo Town property.
Construction has yet to begin at the former restaurant site, which has remained empty.
At least two fires have damaged the building in recent months.
The well-known Bo Town sign remains next to the leveled lot on the site.
To head off the prospect that the site would become a public nuisance, the property owners decided to demolish the fire-damaged restaurant building.
“There was an issue with blight if the building remained,” said Andrew Jacobson, vice president of the U.S. for Westbank.
Bo Town restaurant closed its doors without warning in 2019 after decades of serving meals at 409 South Second Street.
The property’s location at the corner of South Second Street and East San Salvador Street, in downtown San Jose’s lively and hip SoFA district, has made it a choice candidate for development.
San Jose city officials have approved a mixed-use housing tower at the corner of South Second Street and East San Salvador Street, a proposal that Westbank pitched.
If built, the project would produce a 30-story tower with 540 residences and 5,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Although a precise timeline to build the tower is uncertain, Westbank executives don’t want to leave the site completely unused.
“We want to activate downtown San Jose and we want to activate this site,” Jacobson said.
Westbank is fine-tuning concepts for how the now empty lot could help create temporary activities until construction begins in earnest on a housing tower.
While an immediate construction start on a highrise isn’t in the cards just yet, the bulldozing of the former restaurant building is an important milestone along the path to launching the housing tower, in the view of Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy.
“The Bo Town property is a key development site in the SoFA district,” Staedler said. “The demolition of the building is the next step for the development to occur.”
Elevated interest rates have made money expensive for developers who seek construction financing for their projects, especially large endeavors.
Adding to the cost of projects, inflation has made materials and labor expensive.
“The capital markets are in flux, but hopefully will improve,” Staedler said.