The Endangered 8: 2024
San José's Most Threatened Architectural and Cultural Landmarks
Forman's Arena
Location:
447 W. St. John Street
Date:
Built 1926
Architect:
Unknown
Threat:
Neglect, Redevelopment
Forman’s Arena once stood at the center of San Jose’s sporting world, hosting wildly-popular boxing and wrestling matches weekly from 1926 through the late 1930s. Mere steps away from today’s SAP Center, the former arena could be reborn as a beer garden or other fan attraction linking SAP to Little Italy and Downtown along a planned “Sharks Way” pedestrian corridor. Instead, the City is slated to bulldoze this Candidate City Landmark for a temporary surface parking lot that will irrevocably marr this pedestrian way and the adjacent Guadalupe River Park. With a more strategic redesign, the site could easily accommodate a significant parking lot and keep Forman’s Arena in place for a future rebirth.
Learn More and Take Action!
Learn more about boxing promoter Ora Forman and read the 2006 Historic Resource Evaluation for Forman's Arena.
Read PAC*SJ 2023 comment letter on the Milligan Parking Lot Project DEIR (Draft Environmental Impact Report).
Read PAC*SJ's 2024 letter of opposition to the Milligan Parking Lot Project Final EIR.