By 6:45 on a weekday morning, the paved loop off Cassellino Drive already has a rhythm to it. Someone in scrubs takes the Grand Staircase two steps at a time before a shift. A dad pushes a jogging stroller along the flat grass-field stretch while his older kid tries to beat him to the top on foot. Nobody is walking to a coffee shop afterward, because there isn't one up here yet. The staircase is the whole errand.
That gap is the story. Communications Hill was drawn up in San José's General Plan back in 1984 as a dense, walkable urban neighborhood with a real commercial core, close to downtown, the freeways, and rail. Three decades later, the piece of the plan that actually shows up in daily life isn't the shops. It's a staircase, and most of the trail network built to support it doesn't exist yet either.
The Neighborhood San José Actually Drew Up
The Communications Hill Specific Plan, approved by the City Council in 1992, called for roughly 4,700 residential units on about 500 acres, plus commercial and retail space, an industrial park zone, public parks, and a circulating trail system tying it all together. The pitch was straightforward: a dense, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood sitting on a hilltop close to Highway 87, VTA light rail, and Caltrain, the kind of infill San José had been eyeing since the 1980s.
What's been delivered so far is the housing, and only about half of it. City planning documents put the count at approximately 2,500 of the eventual 4,700 units built. The remaining scope, filed under Phases 3 and 4, calls for about 2,200 more residential units, up to 67,500 square feet of commercial and retail space, and roughly 1.44 million square feet of industrial park use. None of that retail total has broken ground. It's still sitting in the same pending phase as the rest.
| Communications Hill | Built So Far | Still in Phase 3/4 |
|---|---|---|
| Residential units | ~2,500 | ~2,200 |
| Commercial/retail space | None yet | Up to 67,500 sq ft |
| Industrial park use | Fire station, dispatch center | ~1.44 million sq ft |
| Dedicated trail | 0.6 miles (Grassina St. to Communications Hill Blvd.) | ~5 additional miles |
| Public parks | Existing neighborhood parks | Two new parks planned |
That last row is the one worth sitting with. San José's own parks page states plainly that a 0.6-mile stretch of official trail is currently open on the hill, and that the next phase of development will add about 5 more miles. Add those together and the finished system will run around 5.6 miles. Right now, roughly one-tenth of it exists.
The Landmark That Beat the Plan to the Punch
So what are people actually using? The Grand Staircase, a 252-step paved ascent that starts near the Cassellino Drive trailhead inside what's officially mapped as Heintz Open Space. It connects into a loop of about a mile and a half with roughly 140 feet of elevation gain, running partly on paved path and partly across an open grass field, with sweeping views on a clear day that stretch from the East Foothills across downtown San José to the Santa Cruz Mountains.
It wasn't the plan's marquee feature. The retail town center was supposed to be the draw, the thing that gave the hill its identity as a walkable neighborhood rather than just another subdivision with a view. Instead, the staircase and its loop became the de facto public square, because slope and open grading were easy to finish while a shopping district needs private capital, tenants, and leases that haven't materialized yet.
A few things worth knowing if you're using the loop regularly:
- There's no shade anywhere along the route, so early morning or early evening is the more comfortable window, especially by late summer.
- Street parking clusters near the Cassellino Drive trailhead and the Grassina Street entrance, the same two points that bracket the currently completed 0.6-mile trail segment.
- Most of the loop is paved and flat enough for strollers or wheelchairs, though the Grand Staircase itself isn't part of that accessible stretch.
- The loop does not yet connect to the Highway 87 Bikeway. That link is one of the pieces Phase 3 and 4 are supposed to add.
The Ground Under Your Shoes Was a Quarry Until 2006
Here's the part that surprises even longtime residents: the hill wasn't always grass and staircases. The Azevedo Quarry operated on this ground from 1971 until 2006, actively mined for aggregate, with reclamation work continuing into 2009. That closure is the reason the hilltop was available at all when the city started planning a dense residential neighborhood here. It wasn't farmland or open space waiting patiently for development. It was working industrial land that shut down within living memory of plenty of people who now live here.
That recent history also explains something about how the hill looks today. There's no mature tree canopy along most of the loop because there hasn't been time to grow one. The bare, sun-exposed stretch that makes shade a real planning consideration on a hot afternoon is a direct consequence of how recently this ground stopped being a working quarry and started being a neighborhood.
What Actually Changes Next
The next phase of development on Communications Hill isn't a mystery, it's published, but it also doesn't have a confirmed completion date attached to it yet. Phase 3 and 4 call for the remaining 2,200 housing units, the still-unbuilt 67,500 square feet of commercial space, and two new public parks, along with the roughly 5 miles of additional trail that would finally link the existing loop out to the Highway 87 Bikeway on the hill's west side. When that connection happens, the staircase loop stops being an isolated circuit and becomes part of a larger trail system reaching further into the valley.
Until then, the numbers on the ground are the numbers on the ground. Less than a mile of dedicated trail is finished. The retail component that was supposed to anchor daily life here is still theoretical. The neighborhood is, by its own planning documents, roughly halfway built after more than 30 years of specific-plan authority.
A Quieter Second Loop, Two Blocks Away
If the staircase loop is where the hill gets its energy, Oak Hill Memorial Park is where it gets quiet. Located in the hill's northern section, it's the oldest secular cemetery still operating in California, with its first recorded burial dating to 1847. Long before Communications Hill had a specific plan or a staircase, this ground was already doing what cemeteries do in a lot of established neighborhoods: offering tree cover, paved paths, and a slower pace for anyone who wants a walk that isn't about splits and step counts. It's a working cemetery, so the etiquette is what you'd expect anywhere else, but it's a genuine second option for residents looking for a shaded, unhurried route on days when the staircase loop feels too exposed.
The Neighborhood That Built Itself Anyway
None of this means Communications Hill is behind schedule in some troubling way. Master-planned neighborhoods on this scale routinely take decades, and half-built at year 30 isn't unusual for a project this size, sitting on this much annexed county land, moving through this many phases. What's genuinely interesting is watching a neighborhood's actual daily life get organized around infrastructure nobody put on the cover of the specific plan. The commercial district that was supposed to give this hill its character is still a line item in a future phase. The staircase that residents built their mornings and evenings around was, functionally, a byproduct of grading a former quarry.
That's worth knowing whether you're renting here, buying here, or just trying to figure out where your new neighbors disappear to at 7 a.m. The finished version of Communications Hill, retail and all, is still coming. The version residents actually use every day already exists, and it's a staircase on reclaimed industrial ground.
If you're weighing how a still-developing neighborhood like Communications Hill might shape home values over the next several years of build-out, that's exactly the kind of hyperlocal read Tenczar Team tracks across South San Jose. Get Your Home's Value and let's talk about what a half-finished specific plan actually means for your equity.
