SAN JOSE — A former gay bathhouse in San Jose has been revamped as an office building with features and amenities that appear suited to the health-conscious coronavirus era.
A dramatic redevelopment of the one-time Watergarden bathhouse was launched by Briggs Development after the Bay Area real estate firm paid $4 million in March 2021 to buy the property at 1010 The Alameda.
The newly upgraded property just west of downtown San Jose has been reborn as a modern office building, according to Jeffrey Rogers, president of San Jose-based Briggs Development.
“Briggs Development is excited to activate this property in the center of The Alameda district and make it available for a new, forward-thinking occupier,” Rogers said.
The office building features sections that are wide open, as well as small office nooks for people who wish to work alone or in a small group. The office spaces all connect to a big outdoor section that includes work spots and gathering areas.
These features are of the sort that office tenants and companies that seek to own offices are believed to covet in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that forced workers and employers to re-think how office workspaces should operate.
“1010 The Alameda is a unique property in San Jose, which offers a healthy, indoor-outdoor work environment,” Rogers said.
Colliers commercial real estate brokers David Schmidt and Duffy D’Angelo have begun to scout for tenants or buyers for the office building, which totals 10,900 square feet.
“This building is going to be occupied,” said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial, a real estate firm. Ritchie arranged the purchase of the property by Briggs Development.
Ritchie believes the building has excellent prospects largely because this portion of The Alameda serves as a gateway to downtown San Jose.
1010 The Alameda also is a few blocks from the footprint of Google’s proposed Downtown West neighborhood, a massive mixed-use development of offices, homes, restaurants, shops, hotel facilities, entertainment hubs and cultural loops where Google could employ up to 25,000 people.
“This is a strong stretch of The Alameda,” Ritchie said. “There is a strong history of owner occupancy here. This is the best piece of The Alameda. It is in the shadow of what Google is doing with Downtown West.”
The principal operators of the Watergarden gay bathhouse also were the sellers of the property to Briggs Development. The bathhouse operators said the outbreak of the coronavirus ultimately doomed their business due to the wide-ranging business shutdowns that state and local government agencies imposed to combat the spread of the deadly bug.
“It is with the deepest regret that we must announce our permanent closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Watergarden posted on its Facebook page in July 2020. “Due to the ongoing closures of businesses and unknown dates for a possible return to normal, we are not able to reopen.”
The private club said the coronavirus dealt Watergarden catastrophic economic jolts.
“Already being closed for months on end has resulted in grave financial losses,” Watergarden stated in the post. “After being in business for over 43 years, it’s heartbreaking to make this announcement.”
Now, however, the emergence of the property as an airy office site with plenty of open spaces could be an example of a forward-thinking development even as the coronavirus-linked woes start to fade from the economy.
“The pandemic has forever changed the way people look at the spaces where they work,” Rogers said. “This building renovation symbolizes a dynamic post-COVID-19 indoor/outdoor office space model that is here to stay.”
