Second Harvest Food Bank Prepares Plan for San Jose HQ After Winning Lawsuit

Concept design for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley’s headquarters, warehouse and distribution complex at 4553 and 4653 North First Street in North San Jose.

SAN JOSE — A thriving nonprofit food bank is once again looking to build a state-of-the-art headquarters and warehouse in San Jose after winning a lawsuit that sought to block the project.

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley is once again actively planning its future headquarters after a Santa Clara County judge dismissed a lawsuit.

Organizacion Comunidad de Alviso, a South Bay group led by local activist Mark Espinosa, argued in its lawsuit that city officials acted improperly when they approved the planned construction of a food bank warehouse on San Jose’s north side.

The community group filed the lawsuit in 2022. In June 2023, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Sunil Kulkarni dismissed the lawsuit with immediate effect.

Now Second Harvest can move forward with plans to build its headquarters and warehouse — though that design is subject to change.

“We continue to work on our new, unified headquarters,” Diane Baker Hayward, a spokeswoman for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, said in an email response to a question about the future of the headquarters.

The city of San Jose granted final approval for the new office and warehouse complex in August 2022. For about two years since then, the food bank has been evaluating its operational requirements for the new building before committing to a final design.

The proposed headquarters, offices and warehouse complex would be located at 4553 and 4563 North First Street in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jose.

“The building will have a similar look and feel to the plans approved in 2022, but we have refined the original building design,” Baker Hayward said.

The new proposal calls for a complex of about 209,000 square feet. The original plans called for a project of 249,200 square feet. That’s a reduction of 40,200 square feet, or about 16% less space.

“We realized we could work with a smaller area and we are proposing changes to the city’s approved plans,” Baker Hayward said.

According to Baker Hayward, the number of staff, volunteers, vehicles, trucks or travel will not increase as a result of the change in project plans.

“We’ve also been able to provide more parking spaces to accommodate volunteers during their shifts,” Baker Hayward said.

Plans to modernize the new headquarters come as Second Harvest decided to close one of its warehouses.

The food bank made the decision to close its warehouse after the nonprofit learned it was facing a rent increase.

The warehouse at 528 Brennan Street in San Jose will close, the food bank, which previously considered the location temporary, announced.

The nonprofit uses the warehouse during production shifts that volunteers work on, as well as for storing equipment, supplies and food.

There is no timeline yet for when Second Harvest might begin construction on the new San Jose complex.

In 2022, Second Harvest paid $37.2 million for the site where it intends to build its new warehouse, distribution and office complex.

The organization decided it made sense for Second Harvest to take action on a smaller, and potentially less expensive, scale.

“As a nonprofit, we focus on managing our costs and using donor dollars in the most efficient way possible,” Baker Hayward said.