Lupina – 797 South Almaden
A new all-electric housing community in San Jose, Lupina will provide 99 affordable and permanent supportive housing apartments. The building design, landscaping and proposed exterior artwork incorporate elements reflecting the agrarian and cultural history of the surrounding area.
The project is located south of downtown San Jose in the Guadalupe/Washington neighborhood, a formerly agrarian area that is a designated historic conservation district, and a hub of Chicano/Mexican-American cultural influence and history. Proximity to the Guadalupe River makes the neighborhood prone to flood risk, so the design incorporates flood-mitigation strategies, including an elevated ground floor.
The six-story project will provide 99 affordable apartments with ground floor commercial space. One-third of the units will be designated for permanently supportive housing, and one-third designated for extremely low-income (ELI) units. Ground floor amenities include a community room, office space for supportive housing staff, office space for the building property manager and lobby/reception staff. LMSA helped facilitate bilingual community engagement meetings to solicit input on programming and design, resulting in massing choices and a color palette that draws from the scale and cultural history of the surrounding neighborhood.
