Future trends: could development move south of San Jose? (Sunnyvale: real estate, to live in)

[Conrad Gray]

The expensive nature of SF means that smaller, newer, tech companies are looking to move to East Bay, and the larger, older tech companies are continuing to build in Santa Clara/North San Jose. It's unlikely to happen in the near future, but will tech, and along with it, housing, move southwards of San Jose, towards Morgan Hill and eventually to Gilroy?

Seems like this was planned in the past, but hasn't happened. Even the Edenvale Technology Park seems almost marginal to the tech boom.

What if Apple had headquartered in Coyote Valley instead of in Cupertino?

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by Conrad Gray

The expensive nature of SF means that smaller, newer, tech companies are looking to move to East Bay, and the larger, older tech companies are continuing to build in Santa Clara/North San Jose. It's unlikely to happen in the near future, but will tech, and along with it, housing, move southwards of San Jose, towards Morgan Hill and eventually to Gilroy?

Seems like this was planned in the past, but hasn't happened. Even the Edenvale Technology Park seems almost marginal to the tech boom.

What if Apple had headquartered in Coyote Valley instead of in Cupertino?

Perhaps eventually, but I have doubts that it will happen anytime in the next 100 or so years. Currently people are tearing down 1 and 2 story office parks to build denser office parks in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, and it is entirely possible that trend spreads to San Jose, but anything that is not north of Downtown San Jose has never been big in tech, except for the hard drive tech location by 85 and 101. There is the issues of trying to get workers where they live, and while plenty of tech workers live in San Jose, there are people over in Palo Alto who became wealthy earlier and are unlikely to go that far south for work. Once you move south of downtown you're getting further from most of the valley and there isn't much housing south of San Jose, Morgan Hill and Gilroy are still pretty small towns.

Maybe if that part of the valley all turns to suburbs then demand for jobs near there will pick up. But doesn't seem like there is any desire for employers to go out where there are few people and build a campus these days.

[simboticus]

I don't think that will happen for many years. I used to live in San Ramon, and always thought more tech companies would move out to the tri-valley area. There are a few in Dublin, Pleasanton, Livermore etc, but not many. Some are just satellite offices of big companies based in SV.

My thinking was, so many people commute from that area and beyond (Tracy, Manteca, etc), real estate is cheaper. Companies would have an incentive to move out there, so I thought, but it has yet to happen.

I did work for a tech company in Pleasanton for a few years, the location was a pretty big problem for recruiting. A lot of people in the south bay perceived it as being too far.

Another data point, I once worked for a startup in Sunnyvale, the CEO lived in Livermore and was interested in moving the company to Tri-valley, we took a vote and about 95% of employees were against the move.

I mention all of this because it in analogous to companies relocating to Morgan Hill/Gilroy. I think all of the above applies, and will make it a very long term change. Unless, a very big employer sets up shop down there, that would be a game changer.

[Conrad Gray]

Does anyone know how development in Edenvale is going? It seems like that's the southernmost reach of tech in SV. Coyote Valley is out of reach, other than the IBM Research Park.

Anyone want to speculate what would have happened if Apple had decided to build their HQ in Coyote Valley, or even downtown SJ?

[eureka1]

There are huge developments planned already for the Gilroy area.

[jbunniii]

There is certainly development pressure in that direction. The recently opened Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve probably would not exist if the timely busts in 2002 and 2009 had not occurred [side note: if busts occur every 7 years, that means we're due for another one next year]:

New park in Silicon Valley opens Saturday, rekindling debate over future of Coyote Valley - San Jose Mercury News

The authority bought the property, which sits at the end of Palm Avenue next to Cinnabar Hills Golf Course, for $3.48 million in 2010. The previous owner, a group of South Bay investors known as 353 Palms LLC that included former Saratoga mayors Paul Jacobs and William E. Glennon, had an option to sell the property to Palo Alto developer Charles "Chop" Keenan. But that arrangement ended in 2009 when the crashing economy and local political opposition stalled Coyote Valley development efforts.
[...]
In the 1980s, Apple and Tandem considered building new headquarters in Coyote Valley. Then, in 1999, San Jose-based Cisco Systems proposed building a 6.6-million-square-foot campus for 20,000 employees just down the road from the new preserve.
[...]
By 2002, however, Cisco dropped its plans after the tech bubble burst.

The preserve is rather small, and the surrounding land is still at risk of future development.

[Conrad Gray]

I really can't imagine how residential development or commuter traffic would look like if there was a prominent corporate office there, either in the future or in the alternate past where Apple (or Tandem Computers, or Cisco) had went there. It seems like the already existent Edenvale Technology Park and the IBM Almaden Research Center are pretty remote and don't drive a lot of congestion.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Why South instead of East (or even Northeast)?

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

Why South instead of East (or even Northeast)?

East of San Jose is a bunch of hills and mountains, I wouldn't be surprised if there are restrictions on development, the terrain is pretty tough for development anyway. To build into the relatively flat areas around there would require expensive tunneling to make a doable commute, and only opens up a little bit of land, you don't really get into large areas for development until you get to Patterson. Building tech companies in those hills would end up being a commuting nightmare for many people. So I'm pretty sure the forgone conclusion is no, there is no going east.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

East of San Jose is a bunch of hills and mountains, I wouldn't be surprised if there are restrictions on development, the terrain is pretty tough for development anyway. To build into the relatively flat areas around there would require expensive tunneling to make a doable commute, and only opens up a little bit of land, you don't really get into large areas for development until you get to Patterson. Building tech companies in those hills would end up being a commuting nightmare for many people. So I'm pretty sure the forgone conclusion is no, there is no going east.

By East I was referring to the 580 corridor. NE would be the 680/242/4/80/Vasco corridors.