The Stile Ranch Trail starts at the south end of Almaden Valley, where Fortini Road meets San Vicente Avenue. From the parking lot it switchbacks straight uphill through chaparral. The Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance describes about 0.7 miles of that climb as running alongside the IBM easement. As you gain height, the views open to the Santa Teresa hills, Almaden Valley, Mount Umunhum and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The grassland on the other side of that easement is part of the land around the former IBM Almaden Research Center at 650 Harry Road. It has stayed open for decades. According to San Jose's mayor, no legally binding easement has ever required it to stay that way.
A Promise Without an Easement
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said so plainly at a mid-October meeting of the Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association, as San José Spotlight reported.
"The thing folks are upset about, rightly, is that when IBM initially built out the campus there, they said that they intended for the open space to be in perpetuity. But … they never created any legally binding easement. Now there is a new owner… we are going to push them as hard as we possibly can to actually adopt a permanent conservation easement."
For as long as most Almaden households have lived below the hilltop, about 565 acres of foothill rested on a corporate intention. The campus is now changing hands, and San Jose is writing citywide rules for the kind of facility the buyer runs. So the question of what that intention is worth has moved from the trail to City Hall.
Mahan told San José Spotlight he is working with District 10 Councilmember George Casey on protecting the open space. He also said he does not want to see the industrial footprint grow beyond its current size.
What the Zoning Map Says Now
The first formal step came before anyone knew who the buyer would be. On August 18, the San Jose City Council voted 9-2 to rezone the property in two pieces, the Mercury News reported.
| Portion of 650 Harry Road | Acreage | Zoning after August 18 |
|---|---|---|
| Developed campus | 35.1 acres | Industrial Park |
| Surrounding hillside | 565.1 acres | Open Space |
The open-space zoning is a city designation. It is separate from the permanent conservation easement Mahan said he wants the new owner to adopt. City officials also told the council that the rezoning alone did not approve any specific permit or redevelopment at the site.
Who Is Buying the Hilltop, and What Is Already There
At the end of September, the Mercury News reported that an affiliate of Blackstart Digital had a deal to buy the campus. Tech entrepreneur Chadwick Manning is the firm's managing partner. The company expects to complete the purchase before the end of the year. IBM had closed the research hub and moved its workers to its Silicon Valley Lab at 555 Bailey Road, near Coyote Valley.
The campus has seven buildings with more than 500,000 square feet. Blackstart says it plans to keep them in their current form. The site already holds several generations of data center facilities and a 25-megawatt power station that IBM installed. The company told the paper, "We intend to expand capacity, subject to power availability." Other uses it listed for the hub include advanced research and development, startup incubators, academic partnerships and quantum computing.
On the hillside itself, the company's statement in the same Mercury News report was direct. "We have no intention or plan to develop the surrounding open space. Our team has local roots, and we know how much the trails and hillsides matter to this community." Erik Schoennauer, a land use consultant representing Blackstart, told San José Spotlight that the company looks forward to working with Mahan and Casey on how to protect the open space. "Our project proposes to only use the existing 35 acres of developed industrial park land."
So the city, the mayor and the buyer all say the hillside should stay open. What they have not yet decided is the legal form that commitment will take, and that is where things stand this month.
The Rules Being Written This Fall
The campus is not the only thing on the city's calendar. San Jose's Office of Economic Development is drafting Data Centers and Large Energy Project Uniform Standards. They would apply citywide to large-load data centers and research facilities, generally those drawing around 20 megawatts or more. Schoennauer told San José Spotlight that the Harry Road project will have to comply with them.
Several items in the October 15 draft presentation, which the city marks "Draft Subject to Change," bear directly on a hilltop above a trail system:
- Lighting: exterior fixtures must be fully shielded and point downward, with extra bird-safe rules within 300 feet of a riparian corridor.
- Generators: EPA Tier 4 equipment, a limit of 25 hours a year for testing and maintenance, operation otherwise only during outages, and testing only on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
- Noise: annual monitoring when homes fall within a set distance, a figure the draft has not filled in yet, plus limits of 55, 60 and 70 decibels depending on the neighboring land use.
- Water and cooling: 100% recycled water or low-water systems such as closed-loop or air cooling. Open-loop cooling with potable water is not allowed.
- Notice: a proposed public-notification radius of 1,500 feet.
One provision ties the standards to Harry Road. They would apply to planning applications still under review when the ordinance takes effect, which is 30 days after its second reading. Blackstart filed for environmental review on June 2. Those filings list July 2028 as the target for a hearing and possible decision.
The draft has drawn comment. San José Spotlight reported calls for a temporary moratorium, along with concerns that the draft leaves out heat-island effects and low-frequency sound. Green Foothills told Spotlight it is concerned the draft does not do enough about noise affecting wildlife near open space. That point applies directly to a campus surrounded by 565 acres of grassland.
The Dates That Decide It
Here is the order of events between now and the campus decision:
- November 18, 6 p.m.: the San Jose Planning Commission reviews the data center standards.
- December 8, tentative: the standards go to the City Council for a first reading.
- December 15, tentative: the ordinance's second reading. It would take effect 30 days later.
- By year-end: the Blackstart affiliate's target for completing the purchase of 650 Harry Road.
- July 2028: the target in Blackstart's environmental-review filing for a hearing and possible decision on the campus.
The city's comment form is still open. Comments that arrived after October 22 will not make it into the staff reports for the November 18 and December 8 meetings. Blackstart has also said that, as plans take shape, it will go through a full public process with the city, neighbors, conservation groups and open-space organizations.
Meanwhile, the Trails Are Open
None of this changes this weekend's hike. Santa Teresa County Park covers 1,673 acres with more than 17 miles of unpaved trails for hikers, cyclists and equestrians. Trails open at sunrise and the park closes at sunset. The county's closures page showed no trail closures at Santa Teresa when it was last updated on October 28. The county also runs a trail hotline for the latest status before you head out.
From the San Vicente Avenue trailhead, two trails climb into the park. The Friends of Santa Teresa Park trail guide gives the Stile Ranch Trail a full length of 1.4 miles, ending at the Mine Trail. The Fortini Trail rises along a grassy hillside above Fortini Road. Linking Stile Ranch, Mine and Fortini makes a loop that starts and ends at the same lot. The county's park guide map marks the IBM Almaden Research Center right next to the park boundary, Stile Ranch Trail, Fortini Trail and Coyote Peak. On that map, the campus and its hillside sit right beside the loop.
For 25 years, Douglas Marshall has followed how changes in the hills shape life in the valley below them, from Almaden to Los Gatos. If you own a home near Harry Road or the Santa Teresa foothills and want to talk through what this fall's decisions could mean for your property, Douglas is glad to sit down with you. When you're ready, start with a free home valuation.
