What's Next for Cambrian Park Plaza and Its Carousel Sign
August 6, 2026
August 6, 2026
Drive south on Union Avenue at dusk and the yellow sign at Camden still catches the light the way it did in 1953. The carousel figures on top don't spin anymore, but the sign is a county landmark, the brick storefronts underneath are still open, and the parking lot is often half empty. If you live in Cambrian Park, you have almost certainly been told the plaza is about to be torn down and replaced with a walkable village. That has been the story since 2022.
The story changed in February 2026, and most residents haven't heard the update yet.
On February 13, Kimco Realty filed a Planned Development Permit Amendment with the City of San José asking to build the housing portion first and stretch the existing entitlements by up to four years. The land use, unit counts, and commercial square footage stay the same on paper. The order in which any of it appears on the ground does not. That single change is the difference between a village that opens as a village and a village that arrives, if it arrives, in a sequence that leaves the retail and public plaza for last.
The city file is PDA20-007-01. The applicant listed is Michael Strahs of Kimco Realty, with Weingarten Nostat, Inc. as the owner of record. The first city comment letter was due March 28, 2026, with Laura Meiners assigned as planner. Anyone can track it through San José's permit portal.
The economic argument behind the amendment is not subtle. Speaking to KQED in April, San José State professor and development consultant Kelly Snider said the current approved plan "is not economically feasible to build" in today's cost environment. Rising interest rates, construction costs, and shifting retail habits have stalled or forced redesigns of large mixed-use projects across the Bay Area, and Cambrian Park is caught in the same headwind.
Phasing housing first is how developers keep the numbers moving. It also concentrates the near-term impact of the project on the part neighbors were least excited about, and defers the part they actually asked for.
The 2022 approval, technically called the Cambrian Park Signature Project, covers 18.13 acres and reads like a small downtown dropped onto the plaza site.
| Component | Approved amount |
|---|---|
| Apartments | ~305 units |
| Ground-floor retail and restaurant space | ~50,990 sq ft |
| Hotel | 229 rooms |
| Assisted living | 110 beds plus 50 independent-living units |
| Single-family homes | 48, with 27 attached ADUs |
| Townhomes | 25 |
| Public open space | ~4 acres |
| Parking | Mostly underground, roughly 1,000 spaces |
| Affordable share | 10% (30 rental apartments plus ADUs) |
The carousel sign stays. Per the approved design, it moves to a spot along Union Avenue between the apartment building and the senior residence. Kimco is also paying roughly $7.88 million in in-lieu fees toward affordable housing built elsewhere, since the on-site 10% falls short of the city's 15% requirement.
Residents who followed the process from 2019 onward were consistent about what they wanted. Peter Clarke of the Friends of Cambrian Park told KQED the community asked for a place people would come to linger, with sit-down dining, not another drive-through corridor. The two comparisons that came up repeatedly were The Pruneyard in Campbell and downtown Los Gatos. Councilmember Pam Foley described the future project as "the gateway to Cambrian."
A housing-first sequence complicates that promise in a specific way. Once residential buildings are constructed on a piece of commercial land, the retail and public plaza become dependent on a separate financing case being made in a later market that no one can forecast. Clarke put the concern plainly to KQED: put housing on commercial land, and it rarely becomes commercial again. The city is not required to accept the amendment as filed, and the review is where the "walkable downtown" version of Cambrian Park will either be preserved as a binding sequence or effectively unbundled.
Because none of this has broken ground, the plaza continues to operate. If your weekly routine includes it, the routine still works.
Hoodline, writing in May 2026, described the site as quietly doing business while its future hangs in the balance. That is an accurate read of what a resident sees today.
The current permit for the Signature Project expires in 2028. That deadline is why the amendment is being filed now rather than in three years. If the phasing change is denied and no other extension is granted, the approved project would either need to start construction on the original schedule or risk lapsing. If the amendment is approved as requested, the clock resets by up to four years and the housing phase becomes the first physical work on the site.
For a homeowner on Ross Avenue or Woodard Road watching this from the outside, the practical translation is this. In 2026 and likely 2027, expect the plaza to look and function about how it does now. Expect city planning notices rather than construction fencing. Expect the carousel sign to keep standing where it stands. Expect Kobylinski's cafe to keep pouring coffee. The dramatic version of "everything changes at Union and Camden" is not the 2026 story. The 2026 story is a paperwork fight over what the eventual change actually looks like.
A few concrete anchors for anyone following the file:
The interesting question for the neighborhood is not whether Cambrian Park Plaza changes. That was decided years ago. The interesting question, being litigated right now in a city planning file that hardly anyone is reading, is whether it changes into the walkable downtown residents were promised or into a housing project with retail attached whenever the market allows.
If you own a home nearby and want a clear read on how the phasing outcome, whichever way it lands, could affect the character and value of the surrounding blocks over the next several years, that is a conversation worth having with someone who has been watching this file since the first EIR comment period. Reach out to Theresa Van Zant & Tom Yore for a Free Market Analysis grounded in what is actually happening at Union and Camden, not in what the rendering shows.
Success starts with the right partnership. At the Yore | Van Zant Real Estate Group, we deliver personalized service, strategic insight, and results that move you forward.