Santana Row’s developers have begun to scout for a big tech firm that would occupy all of a new office project they are constructing at the southwest corner of the upscale complex.
“The new office development will really give San Jose the chance to grow its job base,” said Jeff Berkes, president of West Coast operations for Federal Realty, the principal owner and developer of Santana Row. “The goal is to bring in one or more tech companies there.”
Nearly 1,200 employees, to be precise. Based on current city zoning rules, about 1,150 people could work at the new offices when they are complete, around mid-2016. The six-story, 230,000-square foot complex is now under construction at Winchester Boulevard and Olsen Way.
The developers hope that the offices will be of the type that technology companies that lease the space could dangle the quality of the site in front of employees they are trying to hire.
“What really resonates now in Silicon Valley is that it’s important for tech employees to be in a walkable environment, so they don’t have to get in their car every day to go get lunch,” Berkes said.
At present, tech workers who are in office parks in the suburban areas of Silicon Valley often find that their meal choices are a cafe on the site.
“Technology workers want multiple places where they could walk during or after work, get a drink or a meal, or if they want to work out. We see this as a very important long-term trend in major urban centers like San Jose.”
This office building also represents a major change for Santana Row, which at present consists of retail, restaurants, a hotel, and housing, as well as about 115,000 square feet of offices. But that office space is leased primarily to numerous smaller tenants, many of them on the floor above the ground-floor shops.
The new project is a major gambit to find a large anchor tenant to take the entirety of the building, or at least to find two or three tech companies that would occupy big chunks of the office building.
Santana Row also is making the pitch that state-of-the-art offices in the prime setting of Santana Row — which also is across the street from the Valley Fair regional mall — could be a major recruiting and retention tool for technology companies.
“Competition for employees is more intense than ever,” said Jan Sweetnam, chief operating officer for the western region of Federal Realty.
Plus, other tech companies have attempted to provide on-campus dining, fitness centers, dry-cleaning and child care, as well as other amenities, that those perks become a subtle prod for employees to just never leave the work sites and simply keep on working. Santana Row hopes that its amenities will also coax clients of tech companies leasing space in the offices to have their meetings at the site.
“Companies should be able to capture significant gains in productivity,” Sweetnam said.