The BART Block Behind Five Wounds Is Cleared. What Rises There Is Still Being Decided.

The buildings behind Five Wounds Portuguese National Church have come down to make way for a BART station. VTA's own target for BART service at 28th Street/Little Portugal is the second quarter of 2037. For now, the bigger question on that block is how tall the buildings around the station can be. The City of San José's draft answer is 270 feet, and that decision comes up long before the trains do.

For anyone who lives along the Alum Rock Avenue and East Santa Clara Street corridor, the order of events matters. The height decision will shape the skyline near US-101, and the station itself is still years off.

What came down, and what it was for

VTA's update to the 28th Street/Little Portugal Community Working Group on September 16, 2026, held at Mexican Heritage Plaza, listed the station-block demolition work building by building:

• Silicon Valley Granite: abatement and demolition completed
• Della Maggiore: abatement and demolition completed
• Security Contractor Services: abatement and demolition completed
• Monarch Trucking: abatement and demolition scheduled through October 2026, on the north end of the station block

VTA had already installed building monitors and courtesy curtains around the site. In September it signed a change order putting its project properties, including the 28th Street area, on a regular monthly maintenance schedule.

All of this is site clearing. VTA calls this phase pre-tunneling work. On August 9, 2026, VTA signed the amended contract with tunneling contractor Kiewit Shea Traylor and issued the notice to proceed for pre-tunneling activities on August 14. The Board limited that authorization to $400 million for this early stage, out of a total contract value of $3.547 billion.

Trains are a 2037 target, with 2039 built in

VTA's July 2026 executive report puts the target revenue service date for BART Silicon Valley Phase II in the second quarter of 2037. The Federal Transit Administration's risk review projected February 2039 once its schedule contingency was included. To support its federal funding application, VTA adopted that contingency and the Q1 2039 date that goes with it, while still managing the project toward 2037.

The federal money isn't locked in yet either. The FTA has indicated a $5.1 billion federal share, but only after a Full Funding Grant Agreement is signed. The same July report forecast that signing for the fourth quarter of 2027.

KQED reported in June 2026 that the extension's estimated cost had grown from $4.7 billion in 2014 to $12.75 billion. KQED also reported that a civil grand jury had raised concerns about oversight and financial risk.

So the station is roughly 11 years away even on the target date. The zoning that governs the land around it could be settled in a matter of months.

The decision arriving first is height

The City's Five Wounds Urban Village Plan Update sets the rules for what can be built around the future station. The July 2026 Administrative Draft breaks the Five Wounds District into height zones:

The first row is the station area. The Draft Environmental Impact Report describes existing height rules in the project area as allowing development up to 120 feet. That makes the draft's top limit 150 feet higher than what applies today. The draft also requires a 60-foot stepback for buildings on the future BART station block and along Five Wounds Lane.

The heights drop quickly a block or two west. The tall zone stays on the station block, and the streets toward 26th and 27th are limited to 65 to 85 feet in the draft.

The Draft EIR was open for public comment from August 19 to October 3, 2026. The City says it is revising the plan draft after public comment closed on October 2. It describes the next steps as Planning Commission and City Council hearings, with adoption expected toward the end of 2026. At the August workshop, staff said they expected to bring the plan to the Planning Commission in November and to the City Council in December. The City's hearings page lists those 2026 hearing dates as to be determined.

What happens after adoption is spelled out in the City's own words. Once the plan is adopted, its policies take effect. Projects that follow them can then apply through the City's normal permitting process. New development will either build many of the plan's improvements directly or pay fees that fund them. VTA says its revised Design Development Framework for the 28th Street/Little Portugal transit-oriented development goes to the VTA Board after the City adopts the plan. In other words, the City's plan comes first, and VTA's design for its own land follows it.

What neighbors drew at Roosevelt Community Center

On August 2, 2026, the City held a community meeting at Roosevelt Community Center, 901 East Santa Clara Street. VTA reported 90 attendees for the interactive activity. In that activity, table groups stacked blocks to model building heights on the station land. Each block stood for 40 to 50 feet.

According to the City's workshop summary, most groups put their tallest buildings toward US-101 and the Julian Street offramp, away from existing homes and from Five Wounds National Parish. Group maximums ranged from 200 to 300 feet, and two tables went all the way to 300. Most groups stepped heights down toward the church, ending at 80 to 120 feet for residential and mixed-use buildings along Five Wounds Lane.

The comments ran in both directions. The summary records concerns about how visible the church would remain, how new buildings would fit beside low-rise homes, and shadows, safety, parking and traffic. It also records support for density next to transit and for more housing so younger generations could stay in the neighborhood. One written comment, reprinted in English, Spanish and Vietnamese in the City's August presentation, read:

"I oppose 300-foot-tall buildings at the 28th St/Little Portugal BART Station behind Five Wounds Portuguese National Church. The current plan of record 120-foot-tall policy should not change in the new Five Wounds Urban Village Plan."

Several practical requests came up again and again. Participants asked for a grocery store and other community-serving uses. They suggested putting parking underground and setting up pick-up and drop-off zones on Julian and Santa Clara Streets so traffic stays off 28th Street. Groups also proposed moving the neighborhood park from west of 28th Street to the middle of the BART block. Asked whether the day's feedback would change anything, staff answered yes. They said the height feedback would be built into the plan and that VTA's design framework would incorporate all six table designs.

Here is the scale of what the City's presentation laid out for the station area:

• 800 to 1,200 homes, 25% of them affordable, with potential for senior and artist housing
• 400,000 to 600,000 square feet of office and commercial space
• Retail and community space
• 2 to 3 acres of parks, plazas and paseos, including a Station Plaza, a Neighborhood Park and a Gateway Park, plus the Five Wounds Trail as an open-space priority

The height rule decides how much of that program fits on the block and where it sits relative to the church.

What reaches the street before the trains do

Before any construction on the block, the next visible BART work is monitoring. VTA's next milestone is installing instrumentation, targeted to begin in January 2027 and starting from the west end of the line. The equipment includes settlement markers, tiltmeters, extensometers and vibration monitors placed in the City right-of-way and on buildings. It measures how the ground and nearby structures respond once tunneling starts. For Five Wounds Parish in particular, VTA has committed to hiring a historic buildings expert. It will also survey the church before and after construction and monitor noise, vibration and settlement while the work is underway. VTA is preparing a separate construction traffic plan for the instrumentation work on East Santa Clara Street, and another for the 28th Street/Little Portugal and East Portal area.

Closer in, the City's Cone Zone report lists pavement sealing on Alum Rock Avenue from just east of King Road to Jackson Avenue, and from Jackson to Capitol Avenue in both directions, scheduled for October 26 through November 20, 2026. That's City street work, not part of the BART project.

Business support is also on a later schedule. VTA's Thriving Business Program was approved in March 2024 with $15 million over five years for marketing help, financial assistance and technical guidance. It launches in 2028, alongside an Eat Shop Local campaign. Initial eligibility covers locally owned businesses with 35 or fewer full-time employees and an active San José or Santa Clara business license. The eligibility page describes a physical storefront within about 500 feet of a defined construction area.

VTA presents these timelines at meetings of the 28th Street/Little Portugal Community Working Group. Its members include the Alum Rock Santa Clara Street Business Association, Alum Rock Urban Village Advocates, the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, Friends of Five Wounds Trail, the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association, and the Five Wounds Portuguese National Parish.

If you own near East Santa Clara or lower Alum Rock Avenue and want to know how the station-area plan relates to your street, DeTar Team follows these hearings as closely as we follow sales. We're glad to walk through what the plan's height zones show for your block and what nearby homes have actually sold for. Start with an instant home valuation, and we'll take it from there.