Wednesday Wishlist: Smaller Spaces Downtown

Think Bigger San Jose has a great post about Downtown San Jose needing smaller spaces. Most of the available retail Downtown is gigantic, ranging from 1,500 sqft all the way up to 10,000 sqft. This is not very well aligned with the demand right now in the local retail space. Mark cites Japantown as a San Jose retail success story because it has availability of smaller spaces as "cozy" as 300 sqft. The one example of smaller retail space Downtown is The San Pedro Square Market, and it has been a raging success.

This also extends to residential living. The cost of housing in San Jose is astronomical, especially for students and young professionals. We need smaller residential spaces Downtown along with appropriately scaled down rents. I'm totally aligned with Mark on this one and if I had the money and resources to put up a high-rise of my own up right now, the top item on my list would be a Micro-condo building. None exist in the South Bay and it would open up the housing and rental markets to a whole new group of people and possibilities.

To read Mark's post in Think Bigger San Jose, click here!