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Santana Row (San Jose, California)

USA / California / Fruitdale / San Jose, California
 shopping mall, residential complex
www.santanarow.com/

Upscale shopping and upscale condos, complete with large-corporation-owned "arthouse" movie theater.

It's very much an artifact of the "dot com" boom, as it offers a place for people with too much money to mitigate that problem.

During construction, it was the site of the largest structure fire in San Jose's history. Some local residents believe it would have been better for the community had it been left as charred ruins. Others enjoy the environment carefully engineered to replicate the look of "Old World" cities, despite the lack of actual community spirit.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santana_Row
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   37°19'14"N   121°56'52"W

Comments

  • .k.k (guest)
    I remember that fire. Could see the smoke from my home way the hell over in West SJ.
  • gaucho (guest)
    A lot of people believe that fire was intentionally set, as construction was happening during the "dot bomb", and a lot of the high end condos weren't selling like the developer's had planned. There was definite fear that investors in this place were going to lose their shirts if the local economy didn't recover. Guess we'll never know for sure...
  • dadaoist
    Visited Santana Row a few times - I feel it grasps the "Old World" architecture very well. Though the proportions are somewhat larger than in Europe. Anyways, very nicely done - it feels like Europe.
  • py (guest)
    The fire started in the Chili's restaurant, a construction worker had apparently and carelessly left a blow torch on in the restaurant's air duct and some how spread to all the other floors, though metal doesn't burn, it melts and they claim the fire spread up the ducts to the other levels and the fire quickly engulfed the rest of the building as it was still not finished (just open walls and ceilings)
This article was last modified 12 days ago