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Local Landmarks & Heritage

  • Santana Row Main Street
  • Hotel Valencia
  • Frank M. Santana Park
  • Winchester Mystery House

Neighborhood History

Santana Row takes its name from Frank M. Santana, a civic leader who served on San José's planning commission in the 1950s and is also commemorated by Frank M. Santana Park in the adjacent Winchester neighborhood. The site on which Santana Row now stands was previously occupied by Town and Country Village, an early post-war shopping center that also housed the original Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre when it opened in May 1977 — the first location of what became a national chain.

In the late 1990s, Federal Realty Investment Trust proposed a transformative redevelopment of the 42-acre site into a European-style mixed-use urban district. The City of San José entitled the specific plan in June 1998, and construction began in 2001 at a cost of $450 million — at the time considered the most ambitious mixed-use development project in the United States. On August 19, 2002, during construction, the largest structure fire in San José's history ignited in Building 7, Santana Heights, causing $130 million in damage and destroying apartments in the surrounding neighborhood. Santana Row opened in 2002 and was subsequently recognized with the CELSOC Engineering Excellence Award in 2004 and Builder Magazine's Project of the Year in 2003. Today it encompasses more than 2.5 million square feet of retail, office, residential, and hotel space and records more than 8.5 million annual visits.

MY-NHD's Santana Row tee is for those who know the planning commissioner, the fire, and the $450 million bet that became Silicon Valley's main street.

MY-NHD

Santana Row - San Jose - Unisex Cotton Tee

Santana Row - San Jose - Unisex Cotton Tee

Regular price $29.95 CAD
Regular price Sale price $29.95 CAD
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Santana Row is named for Frank M. Santana, a 1950s San José planning commissioner, and stands where the Town and Country Village shopping center once did. Federal Realty rebuilt the 42-acre site as a mixed-use district that opened in 2002.

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