New Downtown Landmark Faces San Jose City Council

Campbell CA

04 May, 2021

10:13 PM

Description

By Lloyd Alaban, San Jose Spotlight May 3, 2021 San Jose's new iconic landmark faces one more hurdle before construction: Approval from the City Council. Councilmembers are set to give final approval to "The Breeze of Innovation," a project that won an international competition launched in 2019 for a new landmark at Arena Green, located at the southern tip of Guadalupe River Park where the river meets Los Gatos Creek. Fernando Jerez, director of SMAR Architecture Studio which has offices in Australia and Spain, designed the proposed landmark. The Breeze of Innovation will be privately funded by Urban Confluence Silicon Valley, a nonprofit that raised funds through donations from residents and businesses, and gifted to San Jose. So far, the group has raised $2.2 million for the project. But estimates, including some from the organization's Executive Director Steve Borkenhagen, place the final price tag upwards of $100 million. How advocates intend to fundraise the remaining $90 million-plus is still unclear, leaving some residents to question the need for the project. "Imagine how far these resources could go if our city leaders instead… sought millions of dollars in donations for art throughout our city, developing local youth to work on things like murals," resident Dave Poeschel wrote in a letter to the City Council. The Breeze of Innovation, San Jose's future landmark, will consist of hundreds of rods that generate electricity and light up at night. Photo courtesy of Urban Confluence of Silicon Valley. The Breeze of Innovation consists of 500 flexible rods, each 200-feet-high, that sway in the breeze. The energy created by the motion will be used to provide electricity to the building and light up the rods at night. The project is intended to honor the region's tech workers while encouraging greener technology, according to SMAR Architecture Studio. "This project does not intend to solve climate change, but we believe that large public projects could serve to send a message; a world with clean energy is entirely possible," reads a statement from the architecture firm. But environmentalists are staunchly opposed to the project, calling it "light pollution" in the city's downtown and questioning its impact on birds and surrounding plants. Many campaigned against it, including in a recent a San José Spotlight op-ed. The local Sierra Club's Loma Prieta Chapter sent an email Monday encouraging supporters to write letters against the project ahead of Tuesday's council meeting. "The structure will be illuminated at night by light which will be visible across the city," the email said. "Recent Sierra Club Policy highlights the unmitigable harm caused by artificial light at night to all organisms, ecosystems and human health. This project is wrong for the 21st century, wrong for the creek, and wrong for San Jose." The landmark will contain a viewing platform offering 360-degree views of San Jose, as well as exhibition space and room for a café, according to a city presentation. It beat out almost 1,000 other submissions, which included a color-changing structure shaped like a California grizzly bear, a cloud-themed museum and a 200-foot Gateway Arch-like structure called "The Caterpillar." "Now is the time to encourage the citizens of San Jose to embrace an iconic and world recognizable art symbol that will define our city visually," said resident Tom Coombs, who believes the project will be a cultural icon to the city's downtown. In September, Urban Confluence Silicon Valley announced three finalists in a live fundraising event. The project's location near Guadalupe River has garnered controversy, since it's home to hundreds of homeless residents. Homeless encampments have dotted the river since the 1980s, according to some unhoused advocates. "That had never been seen before," housing advocate Sandy Perry said of the encampments at Guadalupe River. "The number of unhoused people just exploded from a few hundred up into the thousands." The project's community task force, including former newspaper publisher David E. Cohen, said research done by the group shows there is little impact on the surrounding area. "The unprecedented community outreach and transparency at every step of the way can only be praised," Cohen wrote in a letter. "From environmental and geographic concerns to the solely private funding of the iconic endeavor, one can only marvel at the depth of commitment of all those involved." If the City Council approves the project Tuesday, developers and the city will create a construction timeline. You can watch the City Council meeting on the city's YouTube page or on Zoom by following this guide. The council meets every Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. For more information on how to watch and participate in City Council meetings, click here. Contact Lloyd Alaban at [email protected] or follow @lloydalaban on Twitter. San José Spotlight is the city's first nonprofit news organization dedicated to independent political and business reporting. Please support our public service journalism by clicking here.