Features

SAN JOSE — City officials and developers of the fire-ravaged Santana Row development promised Tuesday that their $500 million project, conceived at the height of the dot-com boom, will rise as planned and help lead Silicon Valley out of the dot-com bust. 

“Although this has had and will have a tremendous economic impact on this project and our city, I am confident that we will move forward and rebuild,” Mayor Ron Gonzales said Tuesday. “It is very, very important.” 

City spokesman David Vossbrink said the planned Sept. 19 opening for the destroyed section and other parts of the complex “will have to slip a bit,” but the city was committed to helping it open as soon as possible. 

“People want to live here, people want to be here and we want to get it opened as quickly as possible,” said Steve Guttman, chairman and CEO of Federal Realty Investment Trust, the project’s Maryland-based developer. 

The 11-alarm fire gutted a six-acre section of the development — a 42-acre retail, commercial and residential project designed to become a destination for people from all over the Bay Area. 

There were no immediate damage estimates Tuesday and investigators have not been able to begin determining a cause because the damaged area was still too hot. 

The development was one of the most ambitious projects of its kind in the United States. 

“It was a boost to our psyche that we were poised for an economic recovery, “ said Jim Cunneen, chief executive of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. “I am devastated.” 

Hundreds of job seekers had lined up last month hoping to land one of the estimated 1,000 jobs that would ultimately open at the mall. The annual sales tax contribution to the city was expected to be “in the millions,” said Paul Krutko, San Jose’s economic development director. 

The blaze erupted Monday afternoon, spewing 100-foot-high flames and billowing black smoke that could be seen for miles. It was the largest fire in San Jose history, according to Fire Chief Manuel Alarcon — and perhaps the most devastating since an 1887 blaze burned the city’s Chinatown and displaced more than 2,000 people. 

The fire engulfed the largest of nine buildings in the expansive complex. Firefighters were able to spare the others, though wind-born embers destroyed apartments blocks away. 

Battalion Chief Greg Spence of the San Jose Fire Department said that after 27 years of fighting fires this is the biggest he’s been through. 

“At its peak the whole place was in flames, corner to corner and edge to edge,” he said. “There was a huge column of black smoke, sections of the wall were falling down.” 

Wind-blown embers also started fires that damaged or destroyed 43 apartments and homes in a nearby neighborhood, displacing more than 130 people. Some residents straddled roofs and tried to douse flames with garden hoses, while others hurriedly carried belongings from their homes. 

“My whole roof was on fire,” said Devin Dizon. “Whatever you see in the garage is the only thing we’ve got left,” he said, pointing to charred furniture. 

The fire at Moorpark started about a half hour after a blaze erupted at Santana Row. Spencer said it would take several days to confirm what caused both fires. 

There were no major injuries reported from any of the blazes. 

Smoke from the fires snarled several major Bay Area roadways during the evening commute. All of San Jose’s available firefighters responded, as well as crews from nearby cities. 

The Santana Row development was to open next month with 36 retail shops as well as 246 rental housing units that carried monthly rents into the thousands, said Tom Miles, a spokesman for Federal Realty. 

The rest of the Mediterranean-style project, which was slated to resemble a lushly landscaped San Francisco street scene and was billed as a “city within a city,” was designed to include 1,200 luxury residences, a shopping area big enough to hold 14 football fields with stores such as Escada and Gucci, a hotel, a farmer’s market and outdoor cafes. 

“It’s a major loss for this project to go down,” said Fred Phillips, a local retail consultant. “There are millions and millions and millions of dollars going up in flames.” 

Keith Taylor, 27, lives about a half mile from the blaze and planned to rent one of the new two bedroom apartments that burned. 

“It was just the ultimate place you would want to live,” Taylor said. “I would only have to walk down the stairs. It is a self-contained community.” 

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On the Net: 

http://www.santanarow.com