SAN JOSE – An ambitious and massive initiative to build thousands of green homes adjacent to data centers in downtown San Jose will begin in 2025, with significant support from PG&E.
Global developer Westbank, utility PG&E and the city of San Jose have joined forces to accelerate the development of green residential towers that will be powered by excess heat from nearby data centers.
“Our first new development will be in 2025,” said Andrew Jacobson, U.S. vice president for West Bank.
At about the same time that one or more residential projects break ground on brand new developments in downtown San Jose, Westbank will begin construction of data centers to support power for adjacent residential units.
Aside from the new residential towers, Westbank is also working on a significant renovation project, the historic Bank of Italy tower, which could begin within weeks or months.
Jacobson said Westbank plans to convert the Bank of Italy office tower at 12 South First Street into a residential tower.
“The Bank of Italy will launch in early 2025,” Jacobson said.
Canada-based Westbank believes developing housing next to data centers could be a big catalyst for green housing projects by using excess heat from a data center to power surrounding homes.
“You could run an entire city center with data centers,” Ian Gillespie, CEO and founder of Westbank, said Nov. 13 when the initiative to build green housing with data centers was announced.
At least two of Westbank's residential projects will include a standalone data center that will be built adjacent to the residential buildings and will supply the homes with excess heat from the technology plant that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
“Our goal is to capture the heat, provide it to surrounding homes and ultimately connect it to a district energy system in downtown San Jose,” Jacobson said. “The data centers will act as power plants.”
These complicated connections to create a green energy district would likely require PG&E's expertise.
“Although we will begin both the housing and data centers in 2025, we would like to have the data center completed close to the completion of the housing,” Jacobson said. “We want to deliver the data center first and then the housing immediately afterwards.”
This way, the data center is operational and able to provide power before residents move into their units.
The new housing and data centers are both expected to be completed by 2027, Jacobson estimated. The time frame for completing the Bank of Italy tower's conversion into residential housing was not immediately clear.
“This will be closely coordinated with the city and PG&E,” Jacobson said. “We work with a lot of utility companies. PG&E is very forward-thinking and ambitious in its energy supply.”
Here are the downtown San Jose projects that could put data centers next to residential towers built in the West Bank:
— Orchard Residential on land known as the Valley Title site. Westbank's current proposal calls for three 30-story residential towers that would add up to 1,147 residential units in downtown San Jose's trendy SoFA neighborhood at the corner of South First Street and East San Carlos Street.
— Terraine, a 17-story, 345-apartment tower at 323 Terraine Street.
“Ultimately, our housing portfolio in downtown San Jose will be over 4,000 units,” Jacobson said in an interview with this news organization in November.
According to Jacobson, the concept of housing near data centers has emerged in some villages in Scandinavia.
However, the idea of an inner-city energy district with green housing powered by data centers is a rarity.
“San Jose will be three years ahead of other major cities in the United States that are now waking up to this idea,” Jacobson said.
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