Make Vallco Great Again!

The Dead Mall

Have you been inside the Vallco mall lately? It’s like being in a zombie apocalypse. There’s tons of free space to roam around, but the eeriness of the place gave me the creeps. This was two years ago, it’s probably demolished and blocked off right now.

When I went to the mall with my Dad in late 2017, it made me sad to see the once popular mall in such a sad state. I remember going there as a kid and having a great time checking out that one store with all the swords and the suit of armor, as well as that one comic book store with all the cool superhero models. We used to run around the Toys R Us (or was it KB Toys?) and the Macy’s department store.

I would get Fresh Choice (basically Sweet Tomatoes) or Todai with my parents after Church. During Christmas time, we would bring ALL of our presents to get wrapped by their staff.

It was great!

Now, it’s a defunct mall, and a sore thumb in the heart of Cupertino.

Revive

When I heard that they were going to rebuild the Vallco mall, I was excited! Right now, we only have 3 places to go to, the Great Mall, Westfield Valley Fair, and Santana Row. The Great Mall is pretty awesome, and I go pretty often, but it’s an outlet store, and doesn’t always have the best stuff. Westfield Valley Fair is also pretty great, but since it’s the only ‘legitimate’ mall in the area, parking is terrible. Santana Row is great for restaurants, but you need a fat wallet if you want to shop there.

There were so many plans for the Vallco mall. Besides remodeling the inside, they were going to create new housing, new office spaces, and a park ON TOP of the building! I can only imagine how tragic it would be if someone threw a frisbee and it fell off the roof.

In 2016, they released their proposal to the public, and it got shut down. This was the first time I heard of the term “NIMBY” (not in my back yard). People were complaining that the traffic was terrible, and that it would get worse if they added a ‘new attraction’, not to mention all the housing!

After going through a lot of hassle, the developers for the Vallco mall were finally approved to start building with the release of SB 35, a law that helps developers in California streamline the process to create new housing. Because of the law, the developers, Sand Hill, are allowed to build 2,402 homes, half of them to be sold below market rate.

They also plan on building 1.8 million square feet of office space and 400,000 square feet of retail space.

🐔 Blockers

Now, Cupertino’s city council wants them to get rid of the office space.

They claim that when they add in the office space, it’ll need about 10,000 workers to fill it, which means the overall plan to build will make housing WORSE, not better.

For the developer, this could mean the project will no longer be profitable, especially considering that half of the 2,402 residential units will be sold below market value.

It’s Not Easy Being an Investor

As a real estate investor, I feel really bad for the developers. They’re trying to do something to improve the community and I think they should be rewarded for it. The riskiest part of new development isn’t finding out you need to fix the foundation, or that you have a random issue in your walls. It’s getting stopped by unpredictable external factors like politics and policy makers.

I’m excited to see Sand Hill’s vision come to fruition, and I look forward to being able to play frisbee in the park on top of the mall!

Here’s a link to the BizJournal article with more information about the project: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/06/18/vallco-sb-35-approval-better-cupertino-lawsuit.html

What are your thoughts behind this? Do you want to “Make Vallco Great Again?”