Who Will Protect the Hills Around the Old IBM Almaden Campus?

"The thing folks are upset about, rightly, is that when IBM initially built out the campus there, they said that they intended for the open space to be in perpetuity. But … they never created any legally binding easement."

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said this at a Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association meeting on Oct. 16, as San José Spotlight reported. His point changes how the whole hilltop should be understood. For decades, the grassland around the research campus at 650 Harry Road has looked like a preserve. Legally it has been private land that a corporation said it meant to keep open. With IBM leaving, the campus under contract with a data center firm, and the city writing new data center rules, the protection those hills seemed to have now comes down to three separate pieces. Only one of them is finished.

The Land That Looked Protected

The property is bigger than most people picture. When City Council rezoned it on Aug. 18, it split the site into 35.1 acres of industrial park zoning around the existing buildings and 565.1 acres of open space zoning on the land around them. The Mercury News reported that the vote was 9-2 and that no specific project was approved along with it. That works out to roughly 16 acres of open land for every acre of buildings and parking.

IBM put the property up for sale after deciding to close the research hub and move its workers to the Silicon Valley Lab at 555 Bailey Road. The campus has seven buildings with more than 500,000 square feet of space, according to San José Spotlight.

The public trails nearby are on separate land. Santa Clara County Parks describes Santa Teresa County Park as 1,673 acres with more than 17 miles of unpaved trails and views across Almaden Valley and the Santa Clara Valley. On the county's Santa Teresa guide map, the IBM Almaden Research Center is labeled separately from the park, with private property, the park boundary and a service road closed to public access all marked. So the hillsides you see from Santa Teresa's trails are partly scenery owned by someone else, and that is why the ownership change matters.

What Each Layer Actually Does

The zoning is the piece people point to when they say the hills are safe, and it is real. But zoning is set by a council vote, and this land's zoning was itself just changed by one. Some speakers at the August hearing doubted the city would be able to keep the empty land undeveloped over the long run, according to the Mercury News account. Mahan's stated goal is to get the new owner to adopt "a permanent conservation easement," which he described as the legally binding step IBM never took.

A Buyer With a Stated Footprint

Blackstart Digital, a data center development and investment firm, has agreed to acquire the campus, and the deal is expected to close by the end of the year, according to land use consultant Erik Schoennauer, who represents 650 Harry Road LLC and Blackstart, in San José Spotlight's Oct. 1 report. A company spokesperson told the outlet that Blackstart does not intend to develop the surrounding 565 acres, "knowing how much the trails and hillsides mean to the community."

The spokesperson also described what is already on the hilltop. "The campus is served today by an on-site 25-megawatt substation and houses multiple generations of preexisting data center facilities where we intend to expand capacity, subject to power availability." That fits with testimony at the August hearing, where a man who said he was a former IBM employee told the council that the lab "was supported by a massive data center from day one," housed inside the building.

According to the Spotlight report, the company plans closed-loop cooling, advanced battery safety systems, noise mitigation, and software that cuts energy use during peak demand. It says any development proposal would go through review under the California Environmental Quality Act and a public process.

After the mayor's remarks, Schoennauer told San José Spotlight that "our project proposes to only use the existing 35 acres of developed industrial park land," and that the company looks forward to working with Mahan and Casey on the best way to protect the open space. Mahan said he does not want "an expanded footprint." So the city and the buyer have each said publicly that they want the open land left alone. What remains to be settled is the legal form that commitment will take. The Registry reported on Oct. 26 that the mayor and councilmember were pushing for a legally binding conservation easement ahead of the deal.

Why Conservation Groups Want More Than Zoning

Environmental groups have explained why the open land matters to them. Alice Kaufman, policy and advocacy director for Green Foothills, told San José Spotlight that the 565 acres are mostly serpentine grassland. That habitat includes rare native plants and plants the threatened Bay checkerspot butterfly depends on. She noted that serpentine grassland is especially sensitive to nitrogen deposition, which is why her group is concerned about diesel backup generators. She also pointed to wildlife connectivity studies that identify the site as an important wildlife corridor.

In a joint letter to the council, the Sierra Club, the California Native Plant Society and Mothers Out Front argued that the rezoning carries weight because Senate Bill 131 exempts advanced manufacturing facilities on industrially zoned land from CEQA review, as San José Spotlight reported.

Kaufman told the outlet that a codified conservation use would be welcome. Even better, in her view, would be deeding the land to an open space district or habitat agency with experience stewarding land for wildlife. That is a third possible outcome, beyond zoning alone or an easement held over private land. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority already manages Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve at 550 Palm Ave., a separate 348-acre preserve with a four-mile Arrowhead Loop on Coyote Valley's western edge.

The Rules for the 35 Acres

While the open space question is worked out between the city and the buyer, the developed core will fall under standards the city is writing for every data center and large energy project. The October draft presentation is labeled "Draft Subject to Change." As drafted, it would require:

• Power: 100% carbon-neutral electricity, which enrollment in San José Clean Energy satisfies
• Cooling water: recycled water from South Bay Water Recycling or low-water technology such as closed-loop or air-cooled systems, with open-loop potable-water cooling prohibited
• Backup generators: EPA Tier 4 units, testing and maintenance capped at 25 hours a year on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and operation otherwise only during outages
• Noise: structural noise controls and annual monitoring near residential uses, with further reductions if approved thresholds are exceeded
• Siting: generators placed as far from sensitive receptors as feasible, as determined by the planning director, plus separate lighting rules for projects within 300 feet of riparian corridors

The draft still uses placeholders for the distance from homes that triggers noise monitoring and for the annual water-loss cap on low-water systems. Kaufman told San José Spotlight that a data center next to open space only has to meet the weakest noise standard in the municipal code, and Green Foothills wants that changed. Mahan told the outlet he wants San Jose to have "the strictest (data center) standards in the country."

Timing matters here. The draft says the standards would apply to every planning application still under review when the ordinance takes effect. The city's list of current data center and large energy applications, updated Nov. 4, does not include 650 Harry Road. Schoennauer told San José Spotlight that the project will have to comply with the standards the city is drafting.

The Calendar From Here

1. Wednesday, Nov. 18, 6 p.m.: City staff present the draft Large Energy Projects Council Policy and supporting documents to the Planning Commission. The agenda was set to post Nov. 10.
2. Tuesday, Dec. 8: City Council takes up the proposed uniform standards, with the ordinance's first reading.
3. Tuesday, Dec. 15: Tentative second reading. The ordinance takes effect 30 days later.
4. By year-end: Blackstart's purchase of the campus is expected to close.

The city's standards page keeps a community feedback form open. Comments sent after Oct. 22 still reach staff but are not included in the staff reports for the Nov. 18 and Dec. 8 meetings. Public comment at the hearings themselves is the more direct route.

If you own a home along the Santa Teresa foothills or in Almaden Valley and want to understand how changes on the hilltop fit into your own plans, Diane Bucher Real Estate Group is happy to talk it through with you. We'll start with the facts about your home. Request Your Personalized Home Valuation.