SAN JOSE — The installation of a Wells Fargo sign has been completed on both sides of a San Jose office tower, marking the latest corporate name to appear on the rooftop of a prominent downtown building.
The Wells Fargo name now appears on two sides of the roof section of an office tower at 50 West San Fernando St. in downtown San Jose.
The bank’s name replaced a KQED sign that had been perched on the roof of the 50 West office tower since 2016, four years after KQED moved its Silicon Valley office to the high-rise.
However, in 2024, budget cuts had prompted KQED to shut its San Jose office on the ground floor of the tower.
Knight Ridder, the former publishing company that once owned the San Jose Mercury News and other newspapers, had the first corporate logo on the building in 1999.
In 2019, prominent Bay Area real estate firm Jay Paul Co. bought the 50 West tower for $230 million. Commercial real estate firm Newmark is handling leasing in the 357,000-square-foot building.
The offices and branch Wells Fargo currently has in the tower were relocated from an office building a few blocks away in the Cityview Plaza mixed-use complex on South Market Street, also owned by Jay Paul Co.
Poppy & Claro, a restaurant, replaced the KQED broadcast office on the ground floor and has become a key addition to downtown San Jose’s dining scene.
Wells Fargo sign at the top of the eastern side of an office tower at 50 West San Fernando Street in downtown San Jose, as seen on Nov. 9, 2026. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)