Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...SAN JOSE — A San Jose property where a tower of affordable apartments was once approved has instead morphed into a site of blight, marking a fresh instance of yet another neighborhood in the Bay Area’s largest city that’s marred by an eyesore.
The development site is at 605 South Second St. in downtown San Jose, in the city’s lively SoFA district.
In 2021, San Jose officials approved the development of a 29-story housing tower that would have produced 345 residential units on the property. All of the apartments were envisioned as affordable.
The project has yet to start, a development failure that’s left an empty and unsightly lot in its wake.
A growing number of blighted properties have drawn the scrutiny of San Jose city officials of late, with city staffers imposing heightened enforcement on some sites.
Even with these efforts, however, some properties have been eyesores for years, including an empty historic church next to St. James Park in downtown San Jose that is owned by a China-based firm.
In another instance, the Lawrence Hotel on East San Fernando Street has remained largely a burned-out hulk since a fire scorched the historic downtown building more than five years ago.
The blighted site at 605 South Second appears to be an example of a development that was approved but has failed to materialize, leaving the project site empty.
Five years ago, city officials approved a project that would have been one of San Jose’s tallest buildings. Today’s reality differs starkly from the city’s hopes of a residential hub that would have reached skyward.
In recent days, the property remained largely fallow, other than the thick underbrush and countless weeds that choked the site, which is about one-third of an acre in size, this news organization’s direct observation of the property shows.
A big section of a cyclone fence that ringed the property was knocked down, allowing entrance to the parcel.
Richmond-based Krishna Hotels owns the property, San Jose and Santa Clara County public documents show. Parin Patel, who is based in Milpitas, is the agent for the ownership entity, according to city files.
In 2020, a group headed up by Bay Area real estate investor Loida Kirkley proposed development of the housing tower.
Despite receiving approval from San Jose officials for the tower, Kirkley’s firm never broke ground on the project. Kirkley has proposed multiple projects in the city’s downtown but has yet to launch construction on any of them.
The 605 South Second property landed on the city’s radar a year ago, but the site has yet to be cleaned up.
“On June 16, 2025, code enforcement received a complaint that the property located at 605 South Second St. contained graffiti and overgrown vegetation,” stated a report to the San Jose Appeals Hearing Board regarding the blighted site.
After several inspections, city officials issued a code compliance order to the Krishna Hotels entity. All told, city officials inspected the site nine times starting in June 2025 and discovered ongoing blighted conditions.
The city’s Appeals Hearing Board held a meeting on June 11 to consider next steps for the blighted parcel.
“Code Enforcement Inspector Wayne Cirone … stated he conducted an inspection on the date of the hearing, June 11, 2026, and provided updated photographs taken that day to the board to show current conditions and confirmed no effort was made to correct the blighted conditions,” according to minutes that the Appeals Hearing Board posted regarding the meeting.
The property owner faces penalties that could reach $500,000 if Krishna Hotels fails to remedy the site’s problems. The Appeals Hearing Board approved the enforcement action on a 7-0 vote, according to the minutes for the hearing.
Neither Krishna Hotels nor company representative Parin Patel showed up at the June 11 hearing.