Amid growing uncertainty about their future, vendors at the Berryessa Flea Market have asked San Jose for greater clarity and commitment as they anxiously play the waiting game while looking for a new home.
Despite the status of “La Pulga” as a cultural treasure and hub for minority small business owners for more than six decades, the city has explored other potential sites to relocate vendors as the current 60-plus acre property owned by the Bumb family is being eyed for the Berryessa BART Urban Village project.
However, with no long-term turnkey site readily available, business owners have become fearful they will be left in the lurch if and when development plans move forward.
“We are in need of your help, to count on your voice and support 400 families who depend on the income made at the flea market for a living,” vendor and flea market advisory group member Alma Jacobo told the city’s economic development committee Monday. “It’s now at severe risk of disappearing if we don’t take action.”
San Jose has spent the past few years exploring options for the flea market since the rezoning of its current location in 2021 for a new project that could bring thousands of homes and millions of square feet of office space online. The redevelopment proposal also included setting aside a $5 million fund to help offset losses when the market closes and reserving five acres for a small version of the market. However, it would not be able to accommodate all of the businesses currently using the site.
The flea market currently supports 450 vendors who rent space monthly, providing over 1,000 jobs, serving millions of customers and generating $20 million to $40 million in sales annually.
The city commissioned a report from Greensfelder Real Estate Strategy to evaluate the business aspect of the market and the prospects of other locations, including the former Singleton and Remillard landfills, the former Sears building at Eastridge Center Mall, the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, the vacant Evergreen Center office development, vacant property at Santa Teresa and Great Oaks Boulevards and city-owned land near Ann Sobrato High School in Morgan Hill.
Each site, however, has drawbacks, such as size constraints, redevelopment costs, or long-term viability.
For example, the former Sears at Eastridge Mall could be a short-term option but has space and renovation challenges.
Instead, the city has identified the 90-acre Singleton Landfill, which operated from 1964 to 1978, as the best long-term option but even that has several challenges, including remediation of methane gas, to overcome before it can come to fruition.
“This is really the only site that could host a market comparable in size to the one that currently exists,” Economic Development Director Nanci Klein said. “However, there are significant hurdles to this site, one of them being the large cost associated with the environmental mitigation needed on the site, $3 to $4 million an acre (for residential development), and the timeline that will take, so at least three to five years for that environmental mitigation.”
Adding another wrinkle to the situation, the state Housing and Community Development Department verbally told the city that the property was subject to the California Surplus Land Act, which requires prioritization for affordable housing projects.
Although the city is awaiting a written response, Klein indicated that the city may still pursue either an exemption or legislation to facilitate using part of the landfill for a future market.
For now, vendors know their businesses are safe until July 1, 2026, as the market requires a one-year notice for closure.
But with a lack of options and the Singleton site needing several years to be ready, frustrations from vendors have begun to surface again.
“We have proposed solutions,” said advisory group member Maggie Castellon. “We have shown up, yet our voices are met with silence (and) our ideas dismissed and without consideration. Advisory boards and meetings are meaningless, but are only served as check boxes for the city’s optics, not real dialog.”
The vendors’ concerns, however, appear to have gained sympathetic ears from the City Council.
District 5 City Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who represents East San Jose, acknowledged the potential impacts on businesses and the need for more urgency from the city.
“We’ve got to help them get off their feet, regardless of what their next steps are,” Ortiz said. “Whether that’s the Singleton site, whether that’s helping them get brick and mortars, whether that’s looking at local school districts who are closing down schools and seeing if we could put events on those campuses, we’ve just got to be more creative.”
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District 10 Councilmember George Casey, who was on the planning commission when the flea market site was rezoned, described the value of the flea market as “immeasurable” and would represent a huge loss if the city does not step up.
“I don’t know that we even needed those studies to understand how valuable this community is,” Casey said. “We dropped the ball. It’s incumbent upon us to do right here and try to fix this … I can’t imagine not having them thriving in our city.”
