San Jose races to remove 32 dangerous palms downtown

San Jose crews are conducting an emergency removal of 32 deteriorating palm trees from a historical downtown plaza after the trees began posing a danger to the public.

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City officials said 15 palm trees in the Circle of Palms at 124 S. Market St., are dead or dying, while the rest are in declining health, raising the risk of falling trees, according to a media advisory from the city of San Jose. Crews began the removal Thursday and will keep the area barricaded for the next nine days as they finish the work, the city said. 

Colin Heyne, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation, told SFGATE that the city was aware that some of the trees were browning and dropping fronds, but they began deteriorating more quickly than expected — a July arborist report confirmed nearly half of the trees were dead or dying, he said. Officials are examining tissue samples of the trees at a lab and haven’t determined the official cause of death, Heyne said. 

The trees were planted several decades ago, according to Heyne. The removal is expected to cost $45,000.

The Circle of Palms stands on a California Historical Landmark registered in 1950 to commemorate the first state capitol building. San Jose was California’s capital from 1849 to 1851, and a state seal in the pavement, surrounded by palm trees, marks the history.

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The palm trees weren’t always a staple of the iconic plaza though, and the dying trees have been a concern for decades. The city of San Jose spent approximately $6 million planting 450 trees throughout downtown in the 1980s and early 1990s, according to Bay Area News Group, and in the early 2000s, some trees started showing signs of a fungus called pink rot. 

In recent years, the area has been used for a popular ice rink during the holiday season and other community gatherings. 

City officials plan to take a “deliberate approach” as they decide how to redesign the space, the news release said, but have not revealed any plans yet.