SARATOGA — A major homebuilder has purchased the moribund Saratoga Shopping Center, which will become a residential complex.
Pulte Homes purchased Quito Village and paid $54.8 million for the retail complex, according to documents filed with the Santa Clara County Records Department on Sept. 1.
The seller was Sand Hill Property, a busy development firm that has led proposed housing projects through the city’s approval process. Sand Hill Property purchased Quito Village in 2013 for an estimated $20.9 million.
The project consists of 90 homes replacing Quito Village located on Cox Avenue between Paseo Presada and Saratoga Avenue.
The Saratoga acquisition is the second in two weeks that Pulte Homes has purchased a residential development site from one of Silicon Valley’s prominent developers. Pulte paid his $52 million for his five-acre site at 1139 Karlstad Ave in Sunnyvale. On the land, developer Sobrato Organization had previously received city approval for a project with 135 homes, he said, documents filed Aug. 24 show. Pulte said he paid $106.8 million for two properties in eight days.
In Saratoga, Quito Village has been proposed for development by Sand Hill Property in January 2022. Sand Hill Property used Senate Bill 35, a law aimed at increasing housing production in cities not meeting the state’s housing goals, and the California Density Bonus Act to streamline the approval process for local governments. . , according to a post on the city’s website.
“Quito Village reimagines a dying shopping center as a thriving mixed-use townhome community,” said project designer Darling Group.
In recent years, retail centers have fallen into difficult times. The decline of Quito Village intensified in 2017, when the luxury supermarket that served as the center’s anchor tenant closed.
“The project site has served as a shopping center for decades,” the Darling Group said in a post about Quito Village on its website. “The center is more than 50% vacant for him, with only a few tenants remaining.” These include some restaurants, personal service providers and Starbucks his coffee shop.
The proposed development includes both for-sale and rental units. The development will consist of 17 buildings.
The Darling Group says on its website that an estimated 10% of its 90 units are affordable and accessible to “very low-income households.”
The project will also include a stand-alone commercial building totaling 5,000 square feet, according to city plans.
“Quito Village reimagines this underutilized shopping center with the vision of a mixed-use townhome project with commercial use, open space, parking and connectivity to the surrounding area to serve the community. ,” said the Dahlin Group.