January 2015 Downtown Dimension Highlights

Here are my notes from the latest edition of Downtown Dimension:

• Raul Peralez became the new City Council representative for District 3 (Downtown San Jose), replacing Sam Liccardo who is now our Mayor. He has served as a San Jose police officer for 8 years and has 10 years of experience as a teacher. His top priorities are improving public safety, economic vitality, rebuilding relations between the city and unions, public transit, ending homelessness, and affordable housing. If he could change one thing about Downtown it would be to see taller buildings and having a "skyscraper" downtown [Josh: I'm starting to like this guy].
• The San Pedro Square Market and SJSU earn Golden Nail awards which are given to projects that add character and delight to Downtown.
• The City is offering a construction tax waiver to the first developer to build a non-hotel commercial high-rise more than 150 feet tall (this incentive can be valued between $800,000 to $1.5 million). Office vacancy Downtown plummeted from 23% to 13% in 2014.
• The City Council has banned bikes on sidewalks in order to make Downtown safer for pedestrians.
• Broadway San Jose is enjoying a record-breaking season. The final week of "WICKED" in San Jose brought in $1.7 million, which was the highest grossing Broadway show in the country that week. More records are expected to be broken this summer with "Book of Mormon."
• Dice.com is going to move its headquarters from Santa Clara to 16,000 SQFT at 225 W. Santa Clara Street, accommodating up to 100 employees.
• Groundwerx is going to trim 874 sycamore trees lining First and Second streets over the next month.

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