The Alviso Historic Context and Survey project is one of several historic surveys that implement the Citywide Historic Resource Survey Strategy, authorized by the San José City Council in 2017.   

The project is partially funded by a matching grant received from the County of Santa Clara’s Historic Grant Program.

Telling the Stories of our Built Environment

The Alviso Historic Context Statement tiers off the San José Historic Context Statement Update which identified the Alviso Neighborhood as a priority area for a focused historic context and survey. The Alviso Historic Context is a planning document that shares the community’s perspective on the development history of Alviso and supplements the citywide historic context statement.

PROJECT GOAL

Focus on underrepresented voices. The goal of the Alviso project was to include the voices that have been previously underrecognized and underrepresented so as to develop a broader perspective of the community’s history.

The project focused on documenting the history and culture of Alviso through the identification of the community’s buildings, objects, features, places, events, development patterns, and landscapes that primarily date to the 1970s and 1980s and focused on the blocks west of Gold Street.

Existing studies of Alviso have focused on well-known historical narratives around the early Port of Alviso Historic District. The Alviso Historic Context and Survey expanded the early port narrative to include the workers and people who lived in and shaped the town after shipping activities ended. It serves to provide both a wider understanding of the development history of Alviso and a representative sampling of buildings and property types that are associated with that expanded history.

The project is a first attempt to document Alviso's historic resources beyond the bounds of the Port of Alviso Historic District. It is not intended to be a comprehensive accounting of the history of Alviso to identify and evaluate a representative sample of properties as examples for future work. It does not identify all persons and family of local import, nor document all the built resources in the neighborhood, nor catalog all the influential buildings and sites that have been demolished or redeveloped.  

The project engaged the community between June 2022 and December 2023 as follows:

• September 12, 2022 - Online public kickoff meeting
• November 10, 2022 - In-person public information-gathering session, Alviso Public Library
• March and April 2023 - Additional in-person and virtual oral history interviews

Specific parcels and sites noted in the survey report were gathered from research and community input. More properties are likely to exist and each holds a place of personal import to those families whose memories include these spaces. This project is a starting point that will serve the City of San José in its future considerations of growth and development within the Alviso Neighborhood.

July 2023 - The draft historic context statement, survey report and Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) 523 forms were published and available for public comment through August 2023.

August 2, 2023 - Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC) meeting, including public comments

December 6, 2023 - Historic Landmarks Commission meeting, final presentation of the project findings.

See HLC AND DESIGN REVIEW SUBCOMMITTEE AGENDAS/MINUTES

The project updated the 1972 Port of Alviso National Register Historic District documentation to include new DPR 523 forms for the district and for 15 contributing features within the district.

Bayside Canning Company District. The project also created a second set of district forms documenting and evaluating the Bayside Canning Company. The Bayside Canning Company District includes four remaining contributing features associated with this important Chinese-owned business and was found eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and California Register of Historical Resources for its association with Chinese and Chinese American history in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries in California and its association with the productive working life of Thomas Foon Chew, a prominent Chinese American businessman who helped to shape the packing and canning industry in the first three decades of the 20^th century. Additionally, the Bayside Canning building at 1290 Hope Street was found individually eligible for listing on both the National and California registers.

12 historic properties identified. Outside of the Port of Alviso historic district boundaries, 12 properties were recorded and evaluated on DPR 523 forms. This includes single-family residences moved to Alviso during the 1950s and 1960s (relocating houses was the primary way of expanding the neighborhood at that time) and cultural institutions associated with neighborhood civic advocacy and the Latino civil rights movement of the mid- and late twentieth centuries. Of these 12 properties, one was determined eligible for listing on the National Register, six were determined eligible for listing on the California Register, and four were determined eligible for listing on the San José Historic Resource Inventory as Structures of Merit.

Storymap. A storymap was created as an interactive tool to explore the history and historic properties of Alviso, and also includes sites related to the historic development of Alviso where the buildings no longer exist.

Explore the Alviso Historic Properties Storymap

The project resulted in these final documents:

• Alviso Neighborhood of San José Historic Context Statement, Feb. 7, 2024
• Alviso Neighborhood of San José Survey Report

Dana Peak, Historic Preservation Officer
dana.peak@sanjoseca.gov
(408) 534-2990