The development of a huge office campus in downtown San Jose can proceed and an old bank building can be demolished, a Santa Clara County judge has decided in a new ruling on the controversial building. A proposed development that would replace downtown San Jose’s decades-old CityView Plaza with a modern tech campus that could bring 14,000 jobs to the city’s urban core is at the heart of a legal action whose goal was to preserve a bank building designed in a “brutalist” architectural style. — The Mercury News
The ruling denies a petition filed by the Preservation Action Council of San Jose filed seeking to preserve the 1973 Bank of California building and alter the construction of the new office campus being developed by real estate company Jay Paul Co. The petition by the preservationist group claimed that the San Jose City Council conducted a flawed environmental review process for the development and that it should be revisited.
The group also suggested that it might be possible to incorporate the brutalist structure within the proposed campus. This and the call to delay the demolition of the bank until another environmental impact report could be conducted were rejected by the judge.
Eight other structures will also be demolished for the redeveloped CityView Plaza, making room for a trio of 19-story, glass office towers designed by Gensler.
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Ugh. The new Gensler pile slated to replace the old bank is not so good. At the very least, the developer could have hired Pelli Clarke Pelli to design the new buildings. But I'm sure Gensler had a cheaper design fee.
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