Real estate developer KT Urban has withdrawn its latest request to redevelop the Oaks Shopping Center.
A public hearing had been scheduled for this week’s Cupertino City Council meeting on KT Urban’s plan to tear down the 71,000-square-foot shopping center on Stevens Creek Boulevard along Highway 85 and construct in its place a mixed use development with office, residential and commercial space.
The declining shopping center has been a flashpoint in the city’s development discussions for years, and a previous version of the plan had already been rejected by the City Council last August.
The developer planned to ask the council on Jan. 16 to let it work with city staff to prepare a formal application for a revised plan.
But on Jan. 10, the city sent out an email informing residents that KT Urban had withdrawn its request.
So far, the company has provided little in the way of explanation for the decision. A written statement to this paper from Mark Tersini, principal of KT Urban, reads, “After careful consideration, KT Urban has decided that it would be best to pull the project from the City Council agenda at this time.”
At its meeting last Aug. 15, the council considered two alternate development proposals from KT Urban to redevelop the Oaks Shopping Center and rebrand it as Westport Cupertino. It voted 4-1 to reject both.
One, described as a mixed-use residential development, would have included 605 housing units, and the other, described as a mixed-use gateway, was to include 280,000 square feet of office space, a 170-room hotel and 270 housing units, according to staff.
Both would have had included commercial space, a community center, open space, a transit center and underground parking.
As previously reported by this newspaper, opponents of the plan expressed concern that the project would increase traffic and questioned whether the site was large enough to accommodate the proposals.
Following the council’s rejection, KT Urban dropped its mixed-use residential proposal and on Sept. 14 resubmitted its mixed-use gateway proposal after adding a handful of amendments.
Those amendments would have reduced the height of a new office building from 88 feet to 65 feet and increased the number of allowed affordable housing units by 10.
KT Urban is working on alternative proposals, according to staff.
