Background
Santa Clara County's economy used to revolve around agriculture. It was the Valley of Heart's Delight. Now it is better known as Silicon Valley. In the wake of tremendous growth in the high tech arena, new development has plowed under much of the region's rural roots. In the last 20 years over 17 packing plants have been demolished for new development. In fact in all this time only one industrial building has been rehabilitated as a live-work space, even though our sister city to the North has made them a staple of its South of Market resurgence.
Del Monte Plant #51 sits across from the recently
renovated Diridon Station (formerly Cahill), which serves
both Amtrak and CalTrain in downtown San Jose. This high
visibility spot is just across the tracks from the
"Shark Tank," more commonly known as the San Jose
Arena.
The Original Plan
Developers came in with a project that proposed demolition of the entire building. The only part to be saved was the "Manager's Office" facing Santa Clara St.
Sadly developers usually don't even consider rehabilitation, especially when they are not experienced with rehabilitation projects. (Not many get a chance because of the city's habit of clearing sites for development.) While the project met the goals of the Midtown Specific Plan, which governs the area's development, it did not comply with the city's preservation policies in the General Plan or with State Law on Historic Resources.
Push for Preservation
Once the project was viewed by the neighborhood associations and the preservation community, there was significant push-back. After many hours of time by all parties the developer modified the project slightly, proposing that portions of the plant wall be included in a wall of the new development. Also the community was going to get kiosks to remind us of what we lost.
Fortunately the Planning Department, buoyed by the strong preservation stance of the newly elected leaders in San Jose, asked the developer for a significantly more detailed analysis of the feasibility of rehabilitation. This project could not go to the Planning Commission until was an unbiased assessment of how a rehabilitation could be accomplished.
Outcome
After a new structural analysis, the developer agreed to preserve the building. This is good example of having the right policies in place with the city, and getting the right kind of analysis done. Even more importantly, if the Specific Plan had called for preservation at the outset, a lot of time could have been saved. Fortunately this kind of adaptive reuse project is being performed regularly in neighboring cities, providing a model of what can be accomplished.
