SAN JOSE — The owners of a blighted building in downtown San Jose have launched a cleanup of the historic property as a prelude to renovating the damaged structure.
The Lawrence Hotel building at 69 through 89 East San Fernando St. between Second and Third streets is now the focus of a wide-ranging effort to clear away blaze-scorched debris at the site, according to Joseph Castillo, a San Jose restaurant entrepreneur who is a co-owner of the historic building.
A crane operates on the debris-filled second floor of the Lawrence Hotel at 69 through 87 East San Fernando Street in downtown San Jose, as seen on Oct. 15, 2025. (Robert Summa/Bay Area News Group)
“We have gotten all the permits we need to do the site cleanup and start the construction that the building needs,” Castillo said.
In recent days, a crane towered over the building to assist in the removal of materials from the second floor of the Lawrence Hotel, a historic building that was constructed in 1893 that was heavily damaged by fire in January 2021.
Street-level view of the Lawrence Hotel building at 69 through 87 East San Fernando Street in downtown San Jose, as seen on Oct. 16, 2025. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)
“We hope to be completed with the cleanup in about a year,” Castillo said in an interview with this news organization.
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The burned-out hotel has become an issue for San Jose political leaders who have raised alarms about the city’s persistent blight woes.
“The Lawrence Hotel has been sitting blighted for too long,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use and planning consultancy. “The city really needs to make blight removal a priority. We need more than lip service.”
Critics of the city’s efforts to mitigate blighted buildings cite as a prime example the First Church of Christ Scientist at 43 East St. James St. in downtown San Jose.
The abandoned historic building became known as the “trash-bag church” due to a huge tarp that had covered the structure, which once had been slated to be the focal point of a housing development next to St. James Park.
Years of hot sunshine, winds and rain steadily shredded the tarp, transforming the old church into one of San Jose’s worst eyesores.
In 2023, construction executive Jim Salata and several colleagues took it upon themselves to remove the tarp, clean up polluting microplastics from the property, dispose of some of the site’s debris, and repair a hole in the church’s roof.
No further progress has materialized in terms of additional cleanup or restoration of the old church, a property that’s owned by an affiliate of China-based real estate firm Z&L Properties.
At the Lawrence Hotel site, Castillo seeks to return the historic lodging structure to its old glory with a new crop of tenants.
“We will restore the building to how it was before the fire,” Castillo said. “The Lawrence Hotel is historic, so we are going to preserve it. We will start the construction work on the inside of the building.”
The new vision for the hotel could consist of dining establishments and shops on the ground floor. A rooftop bar is a possibility for the second floor.
“It’s been a long time since the fire,” Castillo said. “We are very excited to be starting this work.”