‘Town Square West’ First Phase to Rise in 2026 – November 2025

‘Town Square West’ First Phase to Rise in 2026; New Plan Updates Ensure Feasibility

We have reached the next important milestone for The Rise. Thanks to the progress of the on-site construction underway for the past year and a refined planning set submitted to the City yesterday, the plan we have worked on together for the past decade is now in position to proceed to vertical construction with a first phase of buildings in 2026. This first phase, which we are calling “Town Square West”, comprises 1,369 new homes, including 232 affordable family units and hundreds of market-rate homes that will be offered for sale. The Town Square West district also features 200,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment space and over 3 acres of public parkland and open space for community gathering and recreation.

The planning set submitted to the City entails necessary modifications to project approvals to make The Rise financially feasible and justify the investment necessary for the construction of buildings and proposed community amenities. This modification will align the planning set with forthcoming building permit applications that, once permitted later in 2026, will allow the commencement of Town Square West construction and the grand opening of Cupertino’s long-anticipated town center within a few short years.

In total, The Rise will deliver 2,669 housing units, of which a total of 356 units will be affordable to lower income households. Despite the reduction in total affordable units, the affordable unit mix improves in many ways, including the addition of family-serving affordable homes.  Previously only 11% of the project’s affordable units served families, but under the submitted planning set fully half of the affordable units will be multi-bedroom, family-serving units. In addition, the majority of these units will be reserved for households earning not more than half of the area’s median income level, which responds directly to Cupertino’s affordability crisis and one of its most critical areas of housing need. Still, we think it is important to take a big swing at this crisis, which is why we planned for roughly two-thirds of the total project’s affordable homes to be delivered in the first phase alone, allowing the first move-ins within a few years from now.

The plan also includes a reduction of office space and increase in residential area, as an office tower nearly 500,000 square feet in size is being replaced with two new apartment buildings. This reduction leaves 1,475,000 square feet of office space in the plan and causes a significant reduction in building heights along the property line shared with the Portal neighborhood. This reduction of office space also decreases the project’s traffic impacts and improves the project’s jobs/housing ratio, important considerations among past critics of the project.

This modification paves the way for an exciting 2026, which will see the start of vertical construction including building permit applications, parkland improvements, new roadways, utility infrastructure, and connections for bike and pedestrian circulation within the property and links to existing and planned trail networks.

I’m especially excited to share the latest renderings, sharing new views of the retail paseo and promenade, our new children’s play area, featured for-sale townhomes, and vibrant gathering places within our Town Square West district, all to help you truly get a sense of what it will feel like to live at or visit The Rise.