Downtown San Jose land bought, cleared by Google still undeveloped
SAN JOSE - Almost two years after tech giant Google spent millions buying up land in Downtown San Jose for a massive building project, the South Bay city center remains covered in empty lots.
Jay Meduri still hasn't re-opened his popular Poor House Bistro restaurant more than a year after he relocated it to San Jose's Little Italy neighborhood because it stood in the way of Google's development.
The converted Victorian house made headlines in 2022 when Meduri accepted Google's offer to buy his land and pay for the house to be moved.
"It's definitely a hardship, like any business you're starting there's time and money that has to go into it again and then you realize it's not going to be the same Poor House over there. We're starting something new," Meduri said.
Only the sign out front remains at the restaurant's old location. The lot sits behind cyclone fencing-vacant-just like the acres of other properties Google bought in the city's core.
Although the project now faces an uncertain timeline, Mayor Matt Mahan says he isn't worried.
"We're seeing commercial slowdown in this market. With interest rates being where they are and companies taking a pause in hiring and even layoffs at some companies. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to build new commercial right now and we've been through this many times," Mahan said.
Google's transit-oriented Downtown West project began well before the pandemic and was approved for up to 7 million square feet of office space, 4-thousand market rate and affordable housing units, plus retail, parks, and plazas.
A company spokesperson said Google is "assessing how to best move forward while working to ensure real estate investments match the future needs of a hybrid workforce."
To Google, it's a 10-to-30-year project. But the company has not yet determined when the next phase will begin.
"We sold that land, Google is the rightful owner and they have no obligation to build anything on it until and unless they want to," said San Jose State University Professor Kelly Snider.
Snider called it the risk when working with for profit companies. But while the Downtown West project sits, Google is moving into two other existing tech campuses in North San Jose. And those campuses could also employ thousands of workers.
"I don't think Google is going to move into downtown, if at all, until they can make a lot of money doing it. That's just the truth of it. And that might be in two years, it might be in 22 years," Snider said.
In the meantime, Jay Meduri calls his uprooting bittersweet.
"We had to move and now they're not going to be working on it right now. But if we didn't move then, this location right here might have been gone," he said.
As a businessman, he understands the importance of planning for the long term. And just like Google he's taking the risk that it will all pencil out sometime in the future.
