Cambrian Park Plaza Now Has a Demolition Window. Its Replacement Doesn't Have a Date.
November 12, 2026
November 12, 2026
At Union and Camden, the carousel sign still stands over a strip of storefronts that Cambrian has used for decades. Heartbeat Café has been there since 1996, according to a 2012 Mercury News profile of its owners. Cottage Crafts Boutique was getting ready to mark its 20th anniversary in April 2014, the Mercury News reported that year. Santa Clara County supervisors made the sign a historic landmark in 2016, when it had already been greeting people for more than 60 years.
This fall, San José approved the order in which all of it gets replaced. Under the approved plan, demolition of the current plaza could start in late 2027 at the earliest. The plan gives no date at all for the new shops, the restaurants and most of the central park that the redevelopment was supposed to deliver, because those come near the end of the build order.
The decision came at a Planning Director's hearing on September 30, 2026. Hearing Officer Martina Davis approved the permit amendment and the consistency determination, according to the Open Publica transcript of the hearing. Kimco Realty, the applicant and developer, submitted the phasing application on February 13, 2026, according to the city's project page.
The Mercury News laid out the sequence on November 6. Construction starts with only a fraction of the homes planned for the site.
| Phase | What gets built | What it means for the existing plaza |
|---|---|---|
| 1A | 48 single-family homes and 27 accessory dwelling units | The existing retail buildings are demolished |
| 1B | 25 townhome condominiums | The carousel sign is relocated |
| 2 | Rough grading and underground utilities for the later phases | Site preparation |
| 3 | Assisted living building, 125,700 sq. ft., with 50 independent living units and 110 beds | No retail |
| 4 | 305 apartments over 51,000 sq. ft. of shops and restaurants at Camden and Union, plus an entry plaza and courtyard | The new retail arrives here |
| 5 | 229-room hotel with 4,600 sq. ft. of commercial space | Final phase |
A Kimco filing quoted in the article says that "the phasing plans provide for the orderly buildout of the project." In that order, the existing shops come down in the project's very first step. The replacement shopping and dining space comes in the fourth.
Approval does not mean bulldozers. At the hearing, Kimco's representative described what has to happen before any demolition. The company has to give notice to its retail tenants, hold a community meeting in 2027 with "more definitive dates," hold a separate design workshop for the park spaces, and complete studies and preliminary work before a demolition permit can be pulled.
"The earliest that demolition could occur is really the end of 2027, more likely the first quarter of 2028," the representative said, according to the hearing transcript.
That is Kimco's own estimate, not a city condition. Counted from this week, it means more than a year of the plaza working the way it does now, and possibly closer to a year and a half.
Kimco's site-plan directory for the center shows a plaza made up mostly of local services, studios and small shops:
Cottage Crafts Boutique lists its address as 14458 Union Avenue in Cambrian Park Plaza and posts Tuesday through Saturday hours on its site.
Many of these businesses run on regulars, weekly schedules and seasonal pickups: a standing class, a recurring lesson, a boxing session, a trip to the café. Kimco has to give its retail tenants notice before demolition, so that notice will be the clearest signal of when a particular shop's time at Union and Camden is ending.
The part of the project that Cambrian argued for longest is the part pushed furthest back. One speaker at the hearing represented a residents' group of about a thousand members that has followed the site through more than one owner. He described the group's goal for the property as "a meeting place that put where people could come and linger versus the original idea, obviously a long time ago, which was essentially the strip model," according to the transcript.
He then laid out the group's objection:
"We understand the marketplace, but we have no insight as to when phases four and five will be developed. And equally uh we would like to see the central park completely developed in phase one, not just half to benefit the um the uh the housing."
The group asked that the amendment not be approved as written. Another nearby resident spoke in support of getting the project started, but worried that phasing could become a way to avoid building the commercial space while interest rates stay where they are.
The hearing officer asked why the central plaza couldn't be finished in the first phase. Kimco's representative pointed to construction logistics. The assisted living building needs a lay-down area and a ring road, and the Phase 4 mixed-use building needs construction space on the land that later becomes the hotel and part of the park. The representative also said the first phase is "not a small" amount of park. It includes a community park at Wyrick, a dog park still to be designed in the community workshop, and the park where the carousel sign will be relocated. According to the phasing presentation, Phases 1A and 1B each build part of the common open space, and the rest of the publicly accessible central park comes with Phase 4. The originally approved project includes 4.0 acres of open space, according to the city's project page.
The only change to the conditions recorded in the transcript also points to Phase 4. Condition 6 now requires that 5% of Phase 1 units be restricted as affordable to very-low-income households. That requirement drops away if building permits for the Phase 4 mixed-use building have started by the time 85% of the Phase 1 units are complete. The city also will not issue final occupancy for the last four Phase 1 units until either the Phase 4 permits have started or the affordable units have been deed-restricted. The condition is written around the possibility that Phase 4 trails the homes.
Before any demolition, Kimco's representative described three steps at the hearing. Each one is a point where residents and tenants learn more:
The park workshop is where the first-phase open space takes shape. That includes the park where the landmark carousel sign will be relocated in Phase 1B. Until then, the sign stays where it is, over the same storefronts, through at least the end of 2027.
If you own a home near Union and Camden and want to know how a multi-year build next door could affect your own plans, Taylor Lambert Group follows the Cambrian Park Plaza phases closely and can walk you through it with real local numbers. Get your free home valuation, and we'll keep you posted when the 2027 meeting dates come out.
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