{"id":218860,"date":"2026-03-14T00:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/218860\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:14:09","slug":"san-jose-japantowns-buddhist-church-embarks-on-expansion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/218860\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Japantown&#8217;s Buddhist Church embarks on expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Members of the Dharma Center project team and students from Lotus Preschool participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for a $15 million dollar project called The Dharma Center, Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose's Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\" width=\"5492\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SJM-L-DHARMA-0313-5-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"10556845\" \/>Members of the Dharma Center project team and students from Lotus Preschool participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for a $15 million dollar project called The Dharma Center, Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose\u2019s Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The San Jose Buddhist Church in the city\u2019s Japantown broke ground Thursday on a massive project to replace its 70-year-old education building with a $15 million Dharma Center.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"A pamphlet shows a rendering of the Dharma Center which will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\" width=\"2906\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SJM-L-DHARMA-0313-2-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"10556846\" \/>A pamphlet shows a rendering of the Dharma Center which will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Named for the teachings of Buddha, the two-story facility will house the Lotus Preschool and Japanese Language School, and also offer room for Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops along with temple and Japantown activities.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first big capital construction project for the church in a decade. In 2016, a $5.4 million seismic retrofitting and modernization of the temple\u2019s gym building was finished.<\/p>\n<p>Construction is expected to wrap up a year from now. According to church officials, the team includes lead contractor South Bay Construction, Aedis Architects and Spectrum Project Management Group.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Attendees gather for a group photo during a groundbreaking ceremony for the $15 million Dharma Center on Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose's Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\" width=\"5472\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SJM-L-DHARMA-0313-3-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"10556847\" \/>Attendees gather for a group photo during a groundbreaking ceremony for the $15 million Dharma Center on Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose\u2019s Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"A rendering of the $15 million Dharma Center is displayed as attendees participate in a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose's Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\" width=\"7283\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SJM-L-DHARMA-0313-4-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"10556848\" \/>A rendering of the $15 million Dharma Center is displayed as attendees participate in a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, March 12, 2026, in San Jose\u2019s Japantown. The center will house a preschool, Sunday religious classes, a Japanese language school, and other San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin and community activities. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Dharma Center project team and students from Lotus Preschool participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,8457,181,23,100,88,90,89,198,200],"class_list":["post-218860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-japantown","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}