Related Santa Clara, a massive mixed-use project that’s set to rise across from Levi’s Stadium, has filed an application with the city of Santa Clara to change the mix of buildings to significantly reduce the amount of office space it would deliver.
The change in the project, which was first proposed a decade ago and initially mapped out in 2019, reflects a broader postpandemic shift away from office space.
As originally proposed and approved by the Santa Clara City Council, Related Santa Clara was set to be built on top of 240 acres of city-owned land that used to be a city golf course and landfill. It was to have 9.2 million square feet of space, 5 million of which was to be corporate office space along with 1,680 residential units, 700 hotel rooms and a city center that included other office space, retail/entertainment areas and a food market with several restaurants.
Related Companies, the New York City-based development company behind the project, said in a news release Wednesday that the total size of the project would not change — just some of the elements would be shuffled and adjusted.
Four million square feet of the corporate office space, which was originally envisioned as being a corporate campus for a single tenant or a couple of tenants, would be replaced. Instead, 1.4 million square feet of buildings for light industrial and advanced manufacturing would go up on the project’s eastern periphery with the remaining 2.6 million square feet being incorporated into the mixed-use city center.
“Reimagining portions of the project in ways that better suit today’s economic environment has the potential to accelerate economic benefits to the city,” Steve Eimer, executive vice president of Related Companies and co-managing partner of Related Santa Clara, said in a release.
Eimer said Related appreciated the partnership it had with Santa Clara and was “optimistic this adjustment will allow us to advance construction of Related Santa Clara by focusing on market segments where there is demand.”
Construction has yet to get under way at the Related Santa Clara site, although Related is paying the city rent for use of the land beneath the first phase of the proposed project, which is directly across from Levi’s Stadium on Tasman Drive. Work on that phase was supposed to have begun in 2020, but the Covid pandemic delayed the groundbreaking.
Just east of Related Santa Clara, construction is well underway on Tasman East, a new neighborhood of apartment and condo buildings along with senior and affordable housing. Related has two towers under construction now, which will deliver 684 housing units to the area and is expected to be completed later this year.
