Once the butt of many jokes, downtown San Jose has become an increasingly popular location. Among the latest to indicate interest in a downtown office tower is the city itself, which proposes building a $214 million Civic Center on the eastern edge of downtown.

The city has completed an environmental impact report, and the City Council was expected on June 1 to approve the EIR, a new redevelopment area, a housing relocation plan, and a financing program. City officials hope the project will solve the municipal office space squeeze, improve customer convenience by locating most departments in one place, provide an anchor for that part of downtown, and serve as a symbol for the city. To accomplish that final goal, the city has hired architect Richard Meier, who most recently design the acclaimed Getty Center in Los Angeles. Meier is scheduled to unveil a conceptual design this month.

"Meier is a bold choice for San Jose," the Mercury News said in a recent editorial. "His buildings are unlike anything that has been built downtown."

The city's existing City Hall north of downtown is full, forcing the city to lease office space wherever it is available, city spokeswoman Leslee Hamilton said. "The real estate market is very expensive to lease space in because the market is so hot," she said. Moreover, spreading departments over numerous buildings can confuse citizens or require them to make trips to multiple locations.

The proposed building would provide 550,000-square-feet of office space, including a new City Council chambers. About 2,000 people would work in the 230-foot tower. Plans also call for 1,650 parking spaces in on-site and off-site parking garages, public plazas and a parcel reserved for expansion. San Jose has focused on downtown since the 1980s, and even some technology companies that have thrived in outlying business parks are locating offices in downtown. The city and private builders have invested more than $1 billion in downtown redevelopment, Hamilton said. The planned Civic Center site lies within the proposed, seven-block Civic Plaza Redevelopment Project Area east of the thriving downtown district. Other projects planned for the area, which is next to San Jose State University, are a symphony hall, a rebuilt elementary school, and a church to replace one that burned down a while back, according to a memorandum from Public Works Director Ralph Qualls Jr.

Although the new City Hall is the key component of the proposed seven-block redevelopment area, the city itself � not the redevelopment agency � intends to issue bonds to fund construction. The project must be consistent with Measure I, which city voters approved in 1996. The charter amendment allows the City Hall construction but prohibits imposition of new taxes or transferring funds from existing programs. The project is not without drawbacks. An EIR by David J. Powers and Associates listed 13 significant, unavoidable impacts on traffic, parking, historic resources and air quality. The site � on the south side of East Santa Clara Street between 4th and 6th streets � is farther from freeways than the current City Hall. "For someone coming from out of the area, it's probably going to be a little bit harder to get to," said Julie Capourgno, a city planner who oversaw EIR preparation.

The Planning Commission approved the EIR in April, but a citizen, worried about traffic congestion and a lack of parking, filed an appeal that the City Council was scheduled to hear June 1. The analysis also predicts significant construction impacts to residences and a nearby school, and a land-use compatibility problem when a parking garage is built next to a residential structure. The redevelopment agency is considering moving six 100-year-old Victorians that are eligible for historic protection, Capourgno said. Last September, the City Council appointed a Project Area Committee of residents and business owners. Real estate acquisition and relocation of existing residents and merchants have been issues of concern for the committee, as has disturbance during three years of construction.

The schedule calls for the city to sell the bonds and award a construction contract toward the end of 2000, according to Qualls. Seventeen city departments would begin moving into the new City Hall in fall of 2003.

Contacts:

Julie Capourgno, San Jose planning department, (408) 277-4576.

Ralph Qualls Jr., San Jose public works department, (408) 277-4337.