Construction is set to begin this month on an affordable housing project in the shadow of the Tamien VTA and Caltrain station.
After years of planning, San Jose-based developer The Core Companies has officially secured nearly $140 million in city, county and state funding for the Tamien Station housing and retail project, being developed on VTA land in San Jose.
The project, which will include 134 affordable apartments and a subsidized child care facility, will break ground this month. Tamien Station will become the first housing development to begin construction on VTA property in more than 20 years as part of its long-term transit-oriented development plan, officials said.
“When you drive by in a week or two you’re going to start seeing all the fences going up and excavation starting shortly after that,” Jessie O’Malley Solis, VTA’s transit-oriented development program manager, told San José Spotlight.
VTA has been planning its revamped transit-oriented development program for more than five years, with an aim at steadily increasing ridership and revenue, while using its land to help create much needed market-rate and affordable housing in Santa Clara County.
Currently, the transit agency has about 1,600 apartments or homes in the pipeline across several projects, with Tamien leading the way and more in long-range planning phases.
“It’s exciting momentum and we can’t wait to keep on schedule with more groundbreakings to come,” O’Malley Solis said.
For the Tamien Station project, Core Companies is partnering with VTA and another developer, Republic Urban Properties, to build both the affordable apartments, and a future phase with two market-rate housing buildings—adding another 434 apartments.
