Are There Any Major New Housing Developments or Mixed-Use Projects Being Built in San Jose in 2026?

San Jose is in the middle of a genuine construction surge in 2026. The city has approved and broken ground on more housing units over the past two years than at any point since the 1970s, driven by a combination of state housing mandates, tech-sector demand, and long-delayed infill projects finally moving through the permitting pipeline.

State Housing Mandates Are Driving Volume

California's builder's remedy law and the state's Housing Accountability Act have removed many of the local veto points that previously stalled projects. Cities that fail to meet their Regional Housing Needs Allocation targets face significant legal exposure, and San Jose has responded by streamlining approvals, particularly for projects near transit corridors and in commercial zones that are being converted to residential or mixed use. The result is a pipeline of projects that would have taken a decade to approve in earlier cycles now moving in two to three years from application to groundbreaking.

San Jose's RHNA Obligations Explained

Under the current RHNA cycle, San Jose is obligated to plan for roughly 62,200 new housing units by 2031. That is not a suggestion; it is a state-mandated number tied to the city's housing element, which must be certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. As of September 2026, San Jose has certified its housing element and is actively working through a pipeline of projects across every district of the city to meet that target. The volume of new construction activity reflects that obligation more than any single developer's ambitions.

For buyers and sellers, understanding this context matters. New supply at this scale affects absorption rates, list-price-to-sale-price ratios, and the pace of appreciation in specific neighborhoods. If you want a broader view of how the current market is behaving alongside this construction activity, the San Jose, California Real Estate Market Guide covers pricing trends and timing across the city's major districts.

2. Downtown San Jose: Transit-Oriented Development at Scale

Downtown San Jose has more active development projects per square mile than anywhere else in the city. The San Jose Downtown Association maintains a publicly accessible development map that tracks every project in the pipeline, from projects under construction to those in entitlement review. As of September 2026, that map shows dozens of active projects within a half-mile radius of the Diridon Station area alone.

What the Development Map Shows Right Now

The San Jose Downtown Development Map shows a concentration of mixed-use towers, adaptive reuse conversions, and ground-floor retail projects clustered around the SoFA District, the Paseo de San Antonio corridor, and the blocks immediately surrounding SAP Center. Several projects in the 200 to 400 unit range are currently under construction, with completion dates projected between late 2026 and 2028. A number of these include ground-floor retail or restaurant space, which is changing the pedestrian character of streets like South First and South Second.

Condo and apartment pricing in new Downtown towers is running in a wide range depending on unit size and floor. Studios in newer buildings are typically listed in the $550,000 to $700,000 range as of September 2026, while one-bedroom units in mid-rise buildings with parking and amenities are generally priced from $750,000 to $950,000. High-floor units in the few true high-rise projects command considerably more. Buyers considering Downtown condos should also factor in HOA fees, which in newer buildings with concierge, gym, and rooftop amenities commonly run $700 to $1,200 per month.

Google's Downtown West and Its Ripple Effect

Google's Downtown West campus, centered around Diridon Station, remains the single most consequential development project in San Jose's recent history. The project is planned to bring up to 7.3 million square feet of office, retail, hotel, and civic space to approximately 80 acres west of Highway 87. While Google has moderated its pace of construction relative to earlier projections, the infrastructure improvements tied to the project, including pedestrian bridges, street reconfiguration, and utility upgrades, are actively underway as of September 2026.

The ripple effect on nearby residential development has been substantial. Developers who had been sitting on entitled projects in the Diridon adjacency zone broke ground in 2024 and 2025 in anticipation of demand from Google employees and the broader employment base the campus is expected to draw. Several mixed-use buildings within a ten-minute walk of Diridon are delivering units in 2026, adding meaningful supply to a submarket that had very little new residential construction for years.

3. West San Jose: Approved Mixed-Use Projects Changing the Landscape

West San Jose is seeing a wave of mixed-use approvals and groundbreakings that is reshaping corridors that have been dominated by low-density retail for decades. In July 2026, San Jose officials gave final approval to a long-planned mixed-use redevelopment project in West San Jose that will bring apartments and ground-floor retail to a site that had been stalled for years. This approval is part of a broader pattern along the Stevens Creek Boulevard and Saratoga Avenue corridors, where aging strip malls and underutilized commercial parcels are being converted into mid-rise residential and mixed-use buildings.

According to reporting on the July 2026 approval, the project will add apartments alongside ground-floor retail space, consistent with the city's goal of creating walkable nodes along major commercial corridors. The approval reflects a shift in how San Jose is treating its commercial zones: rather than protecting them exclusively for retail, the city is now actively encouraging residential density on underperforming commercial land.

The Westgate and Stevens Creek Corridor

The area surrounding Westgate Center and the Stevens Creek Boulevard corridor between Winchester Boulevard and Lawrence Expressway has at least nine significant development projects in various stages of planning, approval, or construction as of September 2026. These range from 80-unit infill projects replacing single-story retail to 300-plus-unit mixed-use buildings with structured parking. The scale of change on this corridor is significant enough that buyers considering homes in the surrounding residential neighborhoods, particularly those in the zip codes 95117, 95128, and 95129, should be aware that the visual character of nearby commercial streets will look materially different in three to five years.

What Approval Means for Nearby Home Values

The relationship between new mixed-use development and nearby single-family home values is not straightforward. In the short term, construction activity can create noise, traffic disruption, and visual clutter that some buyers factor into their offers. In the medium term, successful mixed-use projects that activate street-level retail and bring residents to previously underused corridors tend to support or improve values in the surrounding blocks by increasing walkability and amenity access. The outcome depends heavily on project quality and execution, which is why working with someone who knows these specific corridors matters.

4. South San Jose: Over $2 Billion in Projects Underway

South San Jose is undergoing more than $2 billion in development activity in 2026, making it one of the most active construction zones in the entire Bay Area. The projects span a wide range of product types: large apartment communities, townhome subdivisions, mixed-use nodes near the Blossom Hill VTA light rail station, and commercial-to-residential conversions along Cottle Road and Monterey Highway.

Blossom Hill, Cottle, and the Berryessa Connection

The Blossom Hill station area has been targeted for transit-oriented development since the VTA's light rail line was extended, but actual construction has been slow to materialize until recently. As of September 2026, at least two substantial residential projects within a quarter-mile of Blossom Hill station are actively under construction, with a combined unit count exceeding 400 apartments. The Cottle Road corridor, which runs through the southern edge of the city near the Santa Teresa Hills, is also seeing new townhome and single-family attached product aimed at buyers who want more space than a downtown condo but still want proximity to the Highway 85 and 101 interchange.

Further north, the Berryessa BART station area, which sits at the boundary between North San Jose and the Berryessa neighborhood, continues to attract developer interest. Several mixed-use projects in the immediate station area are in various stages of entitlement and early construction. If you are thinking about selling in Berryessa and want to understand how new supply near the BART station affects your pricing strategy, the article on selling a home in Berryessa covers pricing and timing in detail.

New Inventory and What It Means for Sellers

Sellers in South San Jose need to understand that new construction inventory competes with resale homes in ways that were less pronounced five years ago. New apartment communities draw renters who might otherwise be in the market to buy, which can reduce buyer pool depth in certain price ranges. At the same time, new townhome and attached-home projects priced in the $800,000 to $1.1 million range compete directly with resale single-family homes in the same corridor. Sellers whose homes are in good condition and priced correctly can still compete effectively, but the days of a resale home being the only option in a given price band are increasingly behind us in South San Jose.

5. What New Developments Mean for Buyers, Sellers, and People Relocating

The wave of new housing developments and mixed-use projects being built in San Jose in 2026 has real, practical implications depending on whether you are buying, selling, or relocating. The effects are not uniform across the city, and they play out differently depending on price point, product type, and proximity to the specific projects.

How New Supply Affects Existing Home Prices

In theory, more supply moderates price growth. In San Jose's market, the reality is more nuanced. The majority of new units being delivered in 2026 are apartments, not for-sale homes, which means they add rental supply without directly competing with the for-sale market. For-sale new construction, primarily townhomes and condos, is adding meaningful inventory in specific corridors, but the overall for-sale supply in San Jose remains well below what would be considered a balanced market. Median prices for detached single-family homes in San Jose are holding in the $1.3 million to $1.5 million range as of September 2026, with the most significant supply relief showing up in the attached-home and condo segments.

Buyers who are weighing new construction against resale should know that new construction in San Jose typically carries a price premium of 10 to 20 percent over comparable resale product, reflecting the cost of land, materials, and developer margin. That premium can be worth it for buyers who want modern finishes, energy efficiency, and builder warranties, but it is not automatic. Location, HOA structure, and the specific project's quality all factor into whether the premium is justified. First-time buyers evaluating this tradeoff will find the First-Time Home Buyer Guide for San Jose useful for understanding how to approach the comparison.

Timing Your Move Around Construction Activity

People relocating to San Jose in 2026 are arriving at a moment of genuine physical transformation in multiple parts of the city. If you are renting first and planning to buy later, the new apartment supply coming online in Downtown, West San Jose, and South San Jose gives you more options than existed two years ago, and in some cases at more competitive rents than the pre-construction market offered. If you are buying immediately upon relocating, be aware that some blocks adjacent to active construction sites will have elevated noise and traffic for 18 to 36 months. That is worth factoring into your decision, and it is also worth knowing that construction-adjacent homes sometimes carry a modest discount that disappears once the project completes.

People considering a move to San Jose who want a broader orientation to the city's districts, price ranges, and commute patterns will find the Relocating to San Jose guide a useful starting point before getting into the specifics of any particular development corridor.

For buyers at the upper end of the market, some of the new mixed-use projects in Downtown and West San Jose include penthouse and large-format units that overlap with the luxury segment. The San Jose Luxury Home Market guide covers how new construction luxury product compares to established resale homes in that price range.