Diridon San Jose Central Station, and the area around it, is the most important real estate and city-building opportunity west of the Mississippi. At this very moment, San Jose has the enviable opportunity to capitalize on the convergence of right place, right time and right partners. If city officials, residents, developers, and employers can align around an ambitious vision, we can create an urban district of global significance. It can be done. In Denver, London, Rotterdam, Hamburg and elsewhere, forlorn station areas have become engines of urban growth, and well-designed development has spurred a renaissance of civic life, identity, activity and green urban living.

Currently a 240-acre swath of surface parking, the station area will, within 10 years, offer unparalleled transit connections to the region and the state, including BART, Caltrain, High Speed Rail, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, ACE Rail and VTA light rail.

Because this will be the first high-speed rail line in the nation, it is a project of national significance. That’s why the urban policy and planning think tank SPUR led a delegation of South Bay elected officials and transit agency leaders to visit and learn about high-speed rail stations and cities in the Netherlands and France last summer. One of the key takeaways from the study tour was that these transportation projects are also city-building projects and should be planned in tandem with urban improvements.

Several studies have shown that people aren’t willing to walk very far from their office to transit (or vice versa). What makes train stations unique is that they can operate right in the center of town. Proximity and convenience are key to getting people to use transit. Two-thirds of all BART trips start or end at just four stations, in San Francisco’s financial district.

This is why this is the right place to put a significant amount of jobs. We need a lot of riders to make these transit systems successful.

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Voters back Google village in downtown San Jose by big margin: poll In 2017, SPUR published “Rethinking the Corporate Campus,” a report that looked at regional trends in Bay Area employment and their historically lamentable consequences for commuting, climate, and long-term competitiveness. The report looks to downtowns and station areas as key locations for growth, offering transit options not currently available to commuters weary of 2-plus hour commutes on Highway 101 and Interstates 280 and 880. With Google’s plans to create an employment center adjacent to the transit station, this can also reduce the daily migration of employees to points north.

That’s why this is the right time for the conversation about how to seamlessly integrate transit, corporate village, commercial space, housing and public gathering places in the city center.

Silicon Valley is the center of innovation and it should be innovating in this realm, too.

Google’s expansion in downtown San Jose can repeat the mistakes of the past or it can foster Silicon Valley’s culture of disruptive innovation and bring that to bear on the built environment.

Google has built places that are part of great urban districts in other locations around the world. And they are thinking thoughtfully about making buildings more healthy spaces and integrating nature more fully into its design. They seem to be the right partner in San Jose’s transformation.

The opportunity to engage in this city-building effort is just getting underway with the city’s launch of the Station Area Advisory Group (SAAG) last week. This committee will meet in public and offer many opportunities to gather public opinion about Google’s proposed village. SPUR has developed a set of principles for remaking Diridon. These will drive our thinking as part of SAAG committee. However, all are encouraged to join the conversation about how to create a district that is not only global in impact but uniquely reflects our creative, dynamic and diverse community.

Teresa Alvarado is the San Jose Director of SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Research Association.