SAN JOSE — A lender says it’s ready to develop hundreds of homes on a downtown San Jose site if a bankruptcy judge clears the way for the company to seize the property through a foreclosure proceeding, court papers show.
The property that’s in dispute is an abandoned Greyhound bus terminal site at 60 and 70 South Almaden Ave. in downtown San Jose.
The lender for the property, a Texas-based affiliate of a group whose principal executives include real estate developer Chris Jiashu Xu and business executive William Wang, is asking U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Stephen Johnson to rule in a manner that would pave a path to a foreclosure of the site’s loan.
The site’s owner, an affiliate of China-based Z&L Properties that is operating as Full Standard Properties, filed for bankruptcy in July, hoping to reorganize its finances and retain ownership of the San Jose property.
Z&L’s chairman and principal executive is Zhang Li, a real estate tycoon whose affiliates proposed numerous downtown San Jose projects — and built just one.
Full Standard, the Z&L Properties affiliate, stated in a bankruptcy court filing that it was prepared to develop mid-rise apartment housing at the Greyhound site.
The new proposal for mid-rise apartments would be much smaller, yet far more feasible, than the original proposal for two housing towers that would have produced 708 condo units, Full Standard Properties told the bankruptcy court.
The city-approved permits for the project have expired due to the delays in starting construction. A new entitlement process would be required for the site.
The Z&L Properties affiliate said it was seeking a joint venture partner to develop the property. Z&L’s affiliate didn’t identify the potential partner or partners.
The lender group that seeks to foreclose on the property has plenty of experience in completing an array of real estate projects, including some in New York City.
In January 2024, a Xu-led group paid $135 million for the majority of Eastridge Center, a shopping mall in East San Jose.
Full Standard Properties, the Z&L affiliate, bought the Greyhound terminal property in 2016 for $39 million from a group headed up by Bay Area real estate executive Mark Tersini, documents on file with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office show.
In 2019, Full Standard obtained a $19.5 million loan from Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., county real estate records show. In September 2024, Shanghai Commercial Bank assigned this loan to the Xu-controlled affiliate that is now pursuing the loan foreclosure.
In a Sept. 15 filing with the bankruptcy court, the Xu- and Wang-led lending group said it is prepared to proceed with the original version for the site’s development consisting of 700 or more housing units.
“The vacant land at issue is a rotting, empty former Greyhound station,” the lending group stated in the court papers, adding that they have “the resources to develop this piece of property as originally entitled.”
The lending group also cast doubt on the ability of the Z&L Properties to move forward while in bankruptcy.
“There have been no payments made, and there is no reasonable plan that may be confirmed,” the lending affiliate stated in the court papers. “This single-asset LLC does not generate any income, so the only ‘plan’ is a hope and a prayer that (Z&L executive) Zhang Li will pay something. That’s not a plan.”