santana row lofts
Santana Row is a popular destination in San Jose shopping and restaurants It is not just a “shopping center”, but is really a community, one which offers a wide variety of dining, shopping and entertainment, suitable for all kinds of budgets too. Best of all, it’s right in the heart of Silicon Valley. Santana Row’s appeal and success was partly because of the failure of downtown San Jose since it never become a destination.
The other factor in success of Santana Row were the arrival of high end retailers such as Coach, Cole Haan, Kate Spade, Gucci and even Tesla Motors. Add to these high end retailers some good restaurants and apartment lofts then you should have a successful development to boot.
If you recall, mixed use developments become fashionable since it’s the first attempt in many years to create live-and-work spaces with the notion that folks who can live close to where they work they would not need to a car. Mixed use developments were the best approximation of a down town living where people lived very close to their work.
However, in realty the majority of jobs created at these mixed use developments are not high paying jobs where someone could afford to purchase a $700,000 loft above their work space. And the challenge with Santana Row is the same. None of the folks employed at these locations would be earning enough money to qualify for a loan to purchase the lofts developed at Santana Row.
What do you think? Would you consider living in a mixed use development? Would you buy a loft in Santana Row?