IBM Almaden Research Center at 650 Harry Road in south San Jose, showing several buildings in an aerial view. (Google Maps) (Google Maps)
Zoning options for the IBM Almaden Research Center at 650 Harry Road in South San Jose. The small rectangular site would be designated as IP, or Industrial Park. The large surrounding area would be rezoned as OSPH (Open Space, Parklands, Habitat). Nearby city streets are also visible. (City of San Jose)
SAN JOSE — The future of IBM’s research center in South San Jose may start to take shape this month if the City Council decides to update the zoning for the tech titan’s scenic office hub.
Sections of the 687-acre IBM site, perched on bucolic hills above the Almaden Valley of San Jose, could receive new zoning designations.
The entire IBM Almaden Research Center site, at 650 Harry Road, now bears a designation of Planned Development Zoning District, a staff report prepared for an Aug. 18 San Jose City Council meeting shows.
Roughly 35 acres, including the location of the research center’s buildings, would be designated as an Industrial Park Zoning District, according to the staff report. An estimated 652 acres would be designated as an Open Space Zoning District. The precise open-space acreage has varied in different reports. IBM still owns the entire property.
“The Industrial Park designation is … intended for a wide variety of industrial users such as research and development, manufacturing, assembly, testing, and offices,” the San Jose Planning Department stated.
The surrounding open spaces would have a very different range of prospective uses if the rezonings were approved.
“Lands in this (an Open Space) designation are typically devoted to open space, parks, recreation areas, trails, habitat buffers, nature preserves, and other permanent open space areas,” the staff report stated.
The property became available after IBM decided to close the research hub and shift its workers a few miles away to IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab, at 555 Bailey Road on the edges of Coyote Valley in San Jose.
The proposed rezoning has been placed on the City Council’s consent calendar for the upcoming meeting. Consent calendar items can receive speedy votes with time-limited public debate.
The revamped zoning designations don’t enable a site redevelopment or project approval by themselves. Any specific proposals might be subject to considerably more extensive public scrutiny.
Some San Jose residents wrote emails to the city raising concerns about the rezoning effort.
“This request is far more complicated and nuanced than it appears on the surface,” Jessica Vernon wrote in an Aug. 11 email to city leaders. “The consent calendar is an inappropriate forum for the magnitude of issues that this land use and its history represent to the public and to the city.”
Another area resident, Abby Simons, urged the San Jose City Council to remove the item from the consent calendar.
“This agenda item needs to be discussed openly by the residents of the Almaden Valley and greater San Jose community,” Simons wrote in the email. “Leadership means thoughtful restraint and respect of others.”
Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm, touted the property’s potential benefits for a new owner, according to a marketing brochure the company has circulated.
“This offering provides investors the unique opportunity to reposition or redevelop a property of unique scale within Silicon Valley,” the brochure states.
The research hub totals 544,500 square feet, according to the Cushman & Wakefield marketing materials.
“A wide variety of uses, including data centers, industrial, research and development, advanced manufacturing, and general office” could emerge inside the existing research hub, Cushman & Wakefield noted.
San Jose-based land-use consultant Erik Schoennuaer represents the investment group that might buy some or all of the site.
“The current zoning is an antiquated custom zoning from 1980 specifically for the IBM Research Center operation,” Schoennauer said in comments he provided to this news organization in June. “This application is simply a conforming rezoning to establish zoning on the property that matches the existing general plan designations of industrial park and open space.”
The site could be bought by an owner that also intends to occupy the existing buildings, marketing materials show.
“There are limited opportunities for users to purchase office and research and development buildings on a site of this scale in Silicon Valley,” Cushman & Wakefield stated in the brochure.