Rivermark

Rivermark occupies about 152 acres in the northern end of Santa Clara, bounded by Montague Expressway, Agnew Road, Lafayette Street, Hope Drive and the Guadalupe River. It is unlike anything else in the city, because it was not built street by street over fifty years. It was planned all at once as a single community and delivered in a few years, and that shows in everything from the sidewalk widths to the way the retail sits at the center rather than out on a strip.

The land has a serious history. This was the west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center, a state institution that closed in 1998. The city approved redevelopment plans in 2000, construction began in 2002, and three builders worked under one master plan, with Centex building The Arbors and The Park, Lennar building The Promenade and The Greens, and Shea Homes building The Landings and The Glen. The result won a national award as master planned project of the year in 2004.

What makes Rivermark genuinely useful for my clients is the range of housing types in one place. Detached single family homes, townhomes, condominiums and apartments all sit within a few blocks of each other, which is rare in Santa Clara, where most neighborhoods are wall to wall 1950s ranch tracts. If you are selling a family house and want to stay in the same neighborhood in something smaller and easier to maintain, this is one of the few places in the city where you can actually do that without changing your grocery store.

Rivermark Village anchors the community with a grocery store, restaurants and everyday retail, all walkable from most of the housing. The Santa Clara City Library opened its Northside branch here in 2014, which gave the neighborhood a real civic center rather than just a shopping center. The streets are flat throughout and laid out for walking, which matters more than people expect when driving becomes less comfortable.

Schools run through Santa Clara Unified School District, which handles kindergarten through twelfth grade across most of the city. That single district structure is simpler than the split elementary and high school districts in Campbell, Cupertino and Sunnyvale, though I still confirm the specific school assignment for each address rather than assuming.

The location is convenient in the way north Santa Clara generally is. Highway 101 and Montague Expressway are immediately at hand, Highway 237 is minutes away, and Levi’s Stadium and California’s Great America are both close enough to shape traffic on event days, which is worth knowing before you buy. The Santa Clara Transit Center, with Caltrain and VTA connections, is a short drive south, and Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Clara Medical Center is roughly ten minutes away.

On price, Santa Clara ran a citywide median sale of about $1.68 million through the summer of 2026, down about one percent from a year earlier, with homes going into contract at a median of roughly 21 days. Rivermark’s detached homes generally trade at or above that figure while its condominiums and townhomes sit well below it, which is exactly why the neighborhood suits people at both ends of a move. My Santa Clara home prices page tracks the trend and the full Santa Clara area guide covers the rest of the city.

Because Rivermark is only about twenty years old, the owners here are often selling for different reasons than the ones I meet in the older tracts, whether that is a second move after an earlier downsize, an estate situation, or simply wanting to be closer to family. Whatever the reason, the tax and timing questions deserve real attention, and that is what I work through with older adults and their families every week. Book a call with me for an honest read on your options, or see how I prepare and market a home.