SAN JOSE >> Empty retail spaces at a Japantown apartment complex in San Jose could morph into housing units in a fresh effort to convert commercial sites into residences.

Roughly 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space at 620 North Sixth St. would be converted into 11 residential units, plans on file at San Jose City Hall show.

Located at the corner of Sixth and Jackson Streets, the ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces are part of a building owned by Shea Homes, which submitted a preliminary proposal for the housing conversion.

“Minor exterior modifications” are anticipated as a result of the proposal.

The six-story, 518-unit apartment complex is relatively new. Shea Homes developed then completed it in 2022.

The proposal to convert ground-floor retail spaces would create residential units of varying sizes, project plans show. Studios, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units are included in the proposed mix of converted spaces.

Studio sizes were in the range of 670 to 770 square feet, preliminary plans show. Multiple-bedroom units had sizes that included 1,155, 1,200, 1,300, 1,315 and 1,500 square feet.

The time frame for development wasn’t immediately clear as the proposal is in a very preliminary stage.

As retail trends shift, multiple developers have proposed conversions of ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces into housing.

The James, a relatively new apartment building in downtown San Jose, is slated to become one of the latest to convert empty commercial space into residences in a quest to meet a steady hunger for housing in the Bay Area.

That proposal envisions the creation of nine or 10 ground-floor housing units for the building at 98 N. First St.

At 717 West Julian St., about 26,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space in the 249-unit Hanover Diridon apartment building is slated to be converted to 19 residential units.

A short distance away, a conversion plan has been floated for Vespaio, a seven-story mixed-use building with 162 residential units and 32,600 square feet of commercial space — some of it leased — at 130 Stockton Ave. The building might see much of that office and retail space converted to 13 residential units, including live-work spaces.