Milpitas housing boom! Newest project nets city 600 units

Integral Communities is so bullish on the booming Milpitas housing market, it’s moving forward with a large new mixed-use project two years after biting off a 23-acre site next door.
The new 600-unit development, which is also slated to include about 60,000 square feet of retail space, is just the latest example of mushrooming interest in converting older industrial properties in the area centered around the city’s planned Bay Area Rapid Transit station near the Great Mall. Two weeks ago, I wrote about Citation Homes grabbing a 5.6-acre site where it is planning 381 units.
“With BART coming down and (Valley Transportation Authority) already there, it made sense for that area to become higher density residential and get rid of R&D, single-story tilt-up stuff that’s there,” said Glenn Brown, vice president of entitlements for Integral. “The elements are there as far as transportation and economics.”
Integral’s new project is called “Centre Point” and would be located on an L-shaped parcel along Centre Pointe Drive that is currently home to four older R&D buildings owned by an affiliate of the California State Teachers Retirement System. Integral is in contract to purchase them.
Integral’s plan is for 604 units and 56,000 square feet of retail space. The biggest chunk — about 350 units and the retail component — would be built in a mixed-use building facing Great Mall Parkway. Those units would likely be rental. Several other three-story condo buildings would be developed going down the spine of Centre Point. The total density is about 40 units to the acre.
Integral will likely seek a buyer or partner for the project, though it is capable of building on its own, Brown said.

The Centre Point project is adjacent to Integral’s “The District,” a planned community of more than 1,300 units on a sprawling 23 acres that runs along McCandless Drive at Great Mall Parkway. Homebuilder Taylor Morrison purchased the southern half of the project from Integral and is moving forward with construction on 200 units. Integral still controls the northern half of the project.
Milpitas several years go implemented a new planning district that encouraged high-density housing near the planned BART station. So far, 3,700 new housing units have been approved. The plan allows for some 7,000 units in the area. Hundreds of units are in construction and builders seem to be pulling the trigger on new ones every week or so.
“Somebody turned on the green light, and everybody came charging out,” Brown said.

Nathan Donato-Weinstein
Real Estate Reporter-
Silicon Valley Business Journal