San Jose · 2165 The Alameda — a development study
Post Mundane · a development study · 2026-09-16
2165 The Alameda
Shasta Hanchett Park · San Jose ·
Zip 95126 ·
APN 23018033
A modelled 32-home building fits this lot — and it misses the cap rate by 90 basis points.
It needs rent 27% above today's to break even.
2,164 m²lot
3storeys
32homes
345 m²shops
4,203 m²gross floor area
3.75%yield on cost
-90bps over cap
22assumptions
Everything here is computed from public records by one generator
(tools/lead-gen/journey_*.py). It is a first-pass study, not
due diligence: no title, survey, soils, ownership or availability has been checked, and
the lot is not for sale by us.
01
The land
Everything a machine can read about this lot before anybody walks it. The boundary is the county's own, not a sketch, and the numbers under it are measured rather than described.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1 · the land
1 · The land
A real lot, and here it is
2165 The Alameda — boundary drawn from apn 23018033. Imagery: Esri World Imagery. Boundaries: the cities' own open GIS.
Site area
2,164 m² (23,293 sf)
Area of the county parcel polygon. The county's own stated shape_area is 23,301 sq ft = 2,165 m2; the two agree to 0.05%. Convex hull adds 0.28%.
Frontage
30.4 m
on The Alameda — OpenStreetMap way, name='The Alameda', nearest centreline point to the site centroid
Boundary
23018033
Santa Clara County Parcels feature service, services8.arcgis.com/fpjs8A5Vtkshblnd, Santa_Clara_County_Parcels/FeatureServer/0. VERIFIED 2026-09-16 by journey_parcel.py --check: the county returns apn=23018033, situs 2165 THE ALAMEDA, SAN JOSE 95126-1146, shape_area 23,301 sq ft = 2,165 m2, which agrees with site_area_m2 to 0.05%. The City's vacant-land inventory (a 2022 snapshot) named APN 28211036 for this search and the county layer genuinely has no such parcel - but the VLI row for it is a 1.34-acre Urban Residential lot in Willow Glen, while this is a 0.53-acre Neighborhood/Community Commercial lot on The Alameda. They are DIFFERENT LOTS, not one lot renumbered, so the VLI is not the provenance of this study: the county is. journey_deck.py refuses to build unless this check passes.
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1 · the land
1 · The land
The lot, measured
Setbacks are the zone's own, applied per edge by what that
edge faces. The street edge is inferred from the road centreline, not assumed.
Transit
The Alameda is a VTA trunk corridor between Downtown San Jose and Santa Clara; Diridon Station is ~1.6 km south-east
modelledOpenStreetMap corridor classification and station distance
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1b · why this lot
1b · Why this lot
The case, from data that can be checked
Three questions a buyer asks before the zoning matters:
is money moving into this neighbourhood, is anyone else building here, and
what does living here actually adjoin.
Permit momentum, ZIP 95126
2.3x vs 4.7x citywide
City of San Jose building permits, three lists deduplicated by FOLDERRSN, ZIP parsed from the permit address; boom year = 2025-09..2026-08 — boom 32/mo over a 2023 baseline of 14/mo: running cooler than the city
Boom-year money in this ZIP
$27.7M rank 14 of 35
declared construction value, deduplicated
City pipeline within 1.5 km
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major-private-development-footprints + affordable-rental-housing, the city's own layers, centroids within 1500 m of the parcel — Faculty/Staff Housing & Tech Center (Planning Review, 606 m) · Coleman Highline- Hotel (Under Construction, 980 m) · Coleman Highline Building 5 (Planning Review, 1279 m)
Funded affordable housing within 1.5 km
2 projects · 43 units
the city's affordable-rental-housing layer — public money already committed to this walkshed
Named public investment
verifiedVTA BART Phase 2 program; station distance from OpenStreetMap
BART Silicon Valley Phase 2 runs under Diridon Station, ~1.6 km south-east - the largest transit investment in the county's history, in construction
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1b · why this lot
1b · Why this lot
The case, continued
Named public investment
verifiedCity of San Jose Downtown West approval 2021; pause per company statements 2023-2025
Google's Downtown West (80 acres at Diridon) is approved and paused - the approved campus anchors the corridor whether or not it starts this cycle
Named public investment
verifiedEnvision San Jose 2040 General Plan, The Alameda Urban Village plan area
The Alameda is an Envision San Jose 2040 Urban Village - the corridor is DESIGNATED for exactly this building: mixed-use, mid-rise, on the frontage
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1b · why this lot
1b · Why this lot
The site, drawn
The sun, computed for the latitude — solstice paths, noon altitudes, and what each long facade of the bar actually gets.08
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda1b · why this lot
1b · Why this lot
The site, drawn
The walkshed: OpenStreetMap amenities within 900 m and the city's own pipeline projects beside them. Rings at 400 and 800 m — five and ten minutes on foot.09
02
The rules
What the plan permits, and which single line binds. Most sites are not limited by what the owner wants; they are limited by one number in a document nobody enjoys reading.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda2 · the rules
2 · The rules
What is permitted, and which line binds
Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan land use designation for the parcel, as carried on the City's own vacant-land inventory. The zoning district itself could not be read: geo.sanjoseca.gov is unreachable from this machine, and The Alameda Urban Village Plan has not been read.
Maximum height
23 m
modelledNo height is set by the General Plan designation; 23 m is the height at which the 2.0 FAR is reached on this lot at the coverage modelled, so FAR binds and height does not.
Maximum floor area ratio
2
verifiedEnvision San Jose 2040 General Plan - Neighborhood/Community Commercial is up to 2.0 FAR (City of San Jose council report, 2016-06-14)
Ground floor height
4.3 m
assumedGround-floor retail floor-to-floor for a mixed-use building on a commercial corridor
Front setback
0 m
assumedUrban village frontages on The Alameda are built to the sidewalk
Front stepback
0 m
assumedNo stepback is known to be required
Side setback
3 m
assumedSide yard against adjoining commercial and residential lots
Rear setback
6 m
assumedRear yard where the lot backs onto single-family residential
Parking minimum
0 m
assumedCalifornia AB 2097 (2022) removes minimum parking requirements within half a mile of a major transit stop. Whether this site qualifies has not been confirmed.
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda2 · the rules
2 · The rules
The stack that results
The stack against the rules that produced it. The
binding constraint here is floor area ratio.
Floor area ratio is the binding constraint, not height: 2.00 FAR on 2,164 m² allows 4,328 m² and the stack uses 4,203 m². The building stops because it runs out of permitted floor area with 4 storeys of height allowance unused.
Residential plates are trimmed to a 20 m habitable bar: the buildable area is 1,598 m² but a double-loaded corridor deeper than 20 m leaves rooms without daylight, so the upper floors are 1,303 m².
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03
The building
The largest compliant thing that fits, drawn from the rules above. This is massing, not architecture: no facade, no structure, no opinion about how it should look.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda3 · the building
3 · The building
Ground floor
Shops on the frontage, homes entered separately, servicing behind. Which
edge is the street is computed over all four, not assumed to be a long side.
Dimensions in metres. Drawn square to the page with
north on the arrow, as a plan is.14
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda3 · the building
3 · The building
Typical residential floor
A double-loaded bar, units cut into the rows at the true widths of the mix
on the next page. The schedule is counted from this drawing, not assumed beside it.
Dimensions in metres. Corridor, core in a service bay,
stairs at the ends.15
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda3 · the building
3 · The building
The massing
The floor plates as scheduled. This is massing, not
architecture: no facade, no structure, no design.
| Floor | Level (m) | m² | sf |
Use |
|---|
| L1 | 0.00–4.30 | 1,598 | 17,200 | retail + lobby |
| L2 | 4.30–7.35 | 1,303 | 14,022 | residential |
| L3 | 7.35–10.40 | 1,303 | 14,022 | residential |
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda3 · the building
3 · The building
The schedule
| Home | Count | Size |
Rent modelled |
|---|
| Studio | 8 | 42 m² | $2,310/mo |
| 1 bed | 16 | 58 m² | $3,190/mo |
| 2 bed | 8 | 84 m² | $4,620/mo |
32 homes at 60 per
acre, 1.94 floor area ratio, 74% site coverage,
74%
net-to-gross as drawn.
The home count is MODELLED and it is DRAWN: the test-fit bar grammar lays out each floor
— corridor, core in a service bay, stairs at the ends — and the mix above is cut into the
rows at its true widths, so the schedule is counted from the plan, not assumed beside it.
It is what fits, not a proposal anyone has filed.
Type III wood frame over a Type I podium is the standard California mid-rise construction and is what the per-unit costing assumes; the storey count is set by the binding constraint above, not by the construction type.
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04
The market
What it would rent for, what it would cost, and where each figure came from. We can read an index and a permit record. We cannot read what your lender told you last week.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda4 · the market
4 · The market
What the market says
Rental is the tight side of a two-speed city: asking rents are +5.9% year on year while the typical home value is -1.1%, and 56 of 70 housing-shaped pipeline projects are entitled and not building.
verifiedresearch/docs/san-jose-housing-market.md and research/docs/san-jose-development-map.md, both pulled 2026-09-15
Residential rent
$55/m²/month
modelledDerived: Zillow ZORI city asking rent is $3,527/month at 2026-07 across all unit types (research/docs/san-jose-housing-market.md); at the modelled 58 m2 one-bedroom that is $61/m2, taken down to $55 for a non-downtown corridor location.
$3,303 for the average home here
Retail rent
$360/m²/year
assumedNeighbourhood retail on a San Jose commercial corridor, ~$2.80/sf/month NNN
Stabilised vacancy
4%
assumedStabilised vacancy for new San Jose market-rate rental
Operating ratio
30% of income
assumedOperating costs as a share of effective gross income
Capitalisation rate
4.65%
verifiedBay Area multifamily, Q2 2026 - San Jose institutional Class A clearing 4.25-4.65%; the top of that range is taken
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05
The numbers
Income, cost, and the gap between them. One page, no commentary: if the arithmetic does not carry the argument, more words will not.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda5 · the numbers
5 · The numbers
Income
Residential
$1,268,314
1,922 m² net at $55/m²/month
Less vacancy
−$55,707
assumedStabilised vacancy for new San Jose market-rate rental
Less operating
−$401,093
assumedOperating costs as a share of effective gross income
Net operating income
$935,884
Stabilised value
$20,126,537
verifiedBay Area multifamily, Q2 2026 - San Jose institutional Class A clearing 4.25-4.65%; the top of that range is taken
NOI capitalised at 4.65%
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda5 · the numbers
5 · The numbers
Cost
Hard cost
$12,937,238
verifiedOur own harvest of San Jose building permits - multifamily permit valuation reconstructed per project, 2026 median across 25 projects (data/leads/san_jose_cost_index_2026-09.json)
$354,854/unit x 32 units + $990/m2 x 1,598 m2 ground floor
Soft cost
$3,234,309
assumedConsultants, approvals, marketing, legal and entitlement as a share of hard cost. Raised from 0.20 on 2026-09-16: Real Estate Finance and Investments puts soft costs at 25-30% once financing, insurance, permits and professional fees are counted, and a study handed to a stranger must not round in its own favour.
Contingency
$646,862
assumedDesign and construction contingency on hard cost
Municipal charges
$384,000
assumedSan Jose's Multifamily Housing Incentive waives affordable-housing in-lieu fees for the first 1,800 units in designated growth areas and halves construction tax and park fees. Modelled as a reduced residual charge; whether this site qualifies is unconfirmed.
$12,000 × 32 homes
Land
$3,895,190
assumedCommercial-corridor development land in 95126
Finance
$2,297,529
assumedUS construction financing all-in
33 months at 55% average draw
Entitlement carry
$1,589,238
verifiedSan Jose's own register: 5.7-year median in Planning Review across the 21 projects currently in review (san-jose-development-map__problems-proved-v1.html). Land carry only, at the finance rate, before the construction loan exists.
land held at 7.2% through 68 months of review, before the construction loan exists
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda5 · the numbers
5 · The numbers
The answer
3.75%yield on cost · net operating income over total cost
4.65%capitalisation rate · what the finished building is worth per dollar of income
-90 bpsspread · it costs more to build than the finished building is worth
−$4.9M (-19.4%)profit on cost · $20.1M value less $25.0M cost
−$3.6Mmost payable for the land, at a 15% margin · against $3.9M assumed
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda5 · the numbers
5 · The numbers
What would have to change
Rent$55 → $70/m²/mo+27% from today
Cost-19.8%the cut it needs
Without the fee relief-107 bpsat $45,000 per home instead of $12,000
Sensitivity
Basis points over the cap rate, and margin on
cost, at ±50 bps of cap and ±10% of cost.
| cap \ cost | −10% | as costed | +10% |
|---|
| 4.15% | -10-2.5% | -40-9.7% | -66-16.0% |
|---|
| 4.65% | -60-12.9% | -90-19.4% | -116-25.0% |
|---|
| 5.15% | -110-21.4% | -140-27.3% | -166-32.3% |
|---|
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06
What we do not know
Every input that is ours rather than the market's, listed. A study that hides its assumptions is a brochure, and the fastest way to make this one useful is to replace ours with yours.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda6 · what we do not know
6 · What we do not know
Assumed — replace these first
22 of the 35 inputs are ours rather than the market’s. A local professional replacing any one of them changes the answer, and that is the point of listing them.
rules.ground_floor_min_m — Ground-floor retail floor-to-floor for a mixed-use building on a commercial corridorrules.front_setback_m — Urban village frontages on The Alameda are built to the sidewalkrules.front_stepback_m — No stepback is known to be requiredrules.side_setback_m — Side yard against adjoining commercial and residential lotsrules.rear_setback_m — Rear yard where the lot backs onto single-family residentialrules.parking_min_per_unit — California AB 2097 (2022) removes minimum parking requirements within half a mile of a major transit stop. Whether this site qualifies has not been confirmed.programme.floor_to_floor_m — Standard residential floor-to-floor for a Type III over Type I mid-riseprogramme.efficiency — Net rentable to gross for a double-loaded corridor mid-riseprogramme.retail_depth_m — Typical corridor retail bay depthprogramme.max_bar_depth_m — Maximum depth of a double-loaded corridor floor plate that still gives every habitable room an exterior wall; 18-21 m is the normal mid-rise range.market.retail_rent_per_m2_year — Neighbourhood retail on a San Jose commercial corridor, ~$2.80/sf/month NNNmarket.vacancy — Stabilised vacancy for new San Jose market-rate rentalmarket.opex_ratio — Operating costs as a share of effective gross incomecosts.parking_per_stall — No structured parking is proposedcosts.soft_ratio — Consultants, approvals, marketing, legal and entitlement as a share of hard cost. Raised from 0.20 on 2026-09-16: Real Estate Finance and Investments puts soft costs at 25-30% once financing, insurance, permits and professional fees are counted, and a study handed to a stranger must not round in its own favour.costs.contingency_ratio — Design and construction contingency on hard costcosts.dev_charge_per_unit — San Jose's Multifamily Housing Incentive waives affordable-housing in-lieu fees for the first 1,800 units in designated growth areas and halves construction tax and park fees. Modelled as a reduced residual charge; whether this site qualifies is unconfirmed.costs.dev_charge_prior_per_unit — Approximate unwaived San Jose per-unit fee load, carried in the sensitivity as the no-incentive casecosts.land_per_m2_site — Commercial-corridor development land in 95126
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda6 · what we do not know
6 · What we do not know
Assumed, continued
costs.finance_rate — US construction financing all-incosts.finance_months — Build plus lease-up carrycosts.finance_draw — Average outstanding balance over the term as a share of total cost
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda6 · what we do not know
6 · What we do not know
Verified, or derived from something verified
rules.max_far — Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan - Neighborhood/Community Commercial is up to 2.0 FAR (City of San Jose council report, 2016-06-14)market.cap_rate — Bay Area multifamily, Q2 2026 - San Jose institutional Class A clearing 4.25-4.65%; the top of that range is takenmarket.context — research/docs/san-jose-housing-market.md and research/docs/san-jose-development-map.md, both pulled 2026-09-15costs.hard_per_unit — Our own harvest of San Jose building permits - multifamily permit valuation reconstructed per project, 2026 median across 25 projects (data/leads/san_jose_cost_index_2026-09.json)costs.hard_retail_per_m2 — Same harvest - retail permit valuation median $92/sf across 510 permitscosts.entitlement_months — San Jose's own register: 5.7-year median in Planning Review across the 21 projects currently in review (san-jose-development-map__problems-proved-v1.html). Land carry only, at the finance rate, before the construction loan exists.site_case.investments[0] — VTA BART Phase 2 program; station distance from OpenStreetMapsite_case.investments[1] — City of San Jose Downtown West approval 2021; pause per company statements 2023-2025site_case.investments[2] — Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan, The Alameda Urban Village plan areatransit — OpenStreetMap corridor classification and station distancerules.max_height_m — No height is set by the General Plan designation; 23 m is the height at which the 2.0 FAR is reached on this lot at the coverage modelled, so FAR binds and height does not.rules.min_density_du_ac — San Jose urban villages carry minimum densities typically at or above 30 DU/acremarket.rent_per_m2_month — Derived: Zillow ZORI city asking rent is $3,527/month at 2026-07 across all unit types (research/docs/san-jose-housing-market.md); at the modelled 58 m2 one-bedroom that is $61/m2, taken down to $55 for a non-downtown corridor location.
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San Jose · 2165 The Alameda6 · what we do not know
6 · What we do not know
Not read
- Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan land use designation for the parcel, as carried on the City's own vacant-land inventory. The zoning district itself could not be read: geo.sanjoseca.gov is unreachable from this machine, and The Alameda Urban Village Plan has not been read.
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07
What happens next
We are pushing the plan and the pro forma against each other to see whether anything clears. Whatever it finds gets published, including nothing.
San Jose · 2165 The Alameda7 · what happens next
7 · What happens next
We are value-engineering this one
The plan and the pro forma are the same model, so they can be pushed
against each other: plate depth against rentable area, storey height against cost per
home, mix against break-even rent. We run that next and publish what it finds, whether
or not it finds anything. If a scheme clears, the 3D and the marketing set
follow.
What we would rather have than a meeting
One reply, on any of these. We will run it and
send the result back, at no cost.
| Tell us | and we return |
|---|
| A number of ours you would replace |
the study re-run on yours, with the delta shown |
| “What if it were X?” — more storeys, condo
instead of rental, a different mix |
that scheme, drawn and underwritten |
| A parcel you actually care about |
this same study, on that lot |
| Research you wish existed for your market |
it, if we can get the data, and you are told plainly if we cannot |
There is no tier, no trial and nothing to sign. We are building the system
and arguing with a developer is how it gets less wrong.
Generated 2026-09-16 by tools/lead-gen/journey_deck.py from
journey_sites.json. Drawings are produced from the same
geometry as the pro forma. Imagery: Esri World Imagery. Boundaries: the cities' own open GIS.
Post Mundane · sanjose.postmundane.com — this study is illustrative. It is not an offer, an
appraisal, investment advice, or a statement that this site is available.
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