The silver lining behind Camino Brewing's closure

No one wants to see a popular business shut down in San Jose. Sadly Camino Brewing Co. announced that they were closing their operations last week. Fortunately, there is a silver lining... the space will not be vacant for long.

Word on the street is that the entire space will be reinvented and the building owner--Jim Salata--wants to have a new concept open THIS summer. It sounds like it will be much more than a taproom and may or may not include a brewery on site. They have a great outdoor area, so I can't wait to see what the new space will look like.

Jim Salata also has another project in the Downtown San Jose area. He's restoring the former Faber's Cyclery into a new bar called Benjamin's Saloon. However the Camino replacement will take top priority, especially since Faber's Cyclery is in a 140 year old building that has to be painstakingly restored.

Source: The Mercury News

 

San Jose developing new business incentives for AI

AI is currently the future of tech, there is no way around it. San Jose has declared its intentions to become a hub for AI, including turning Downtown San Jose into an incubator for AI startups. However, now our city seems to be taking a further step and planning business incentives for AI companies as part of the initial budgeting sessions of the year. It's still too early to know what form these would take or how much would be available, but the goal is officially there.

Also part of the budgetary priorities are incentives for manufacturing companies and expanding the residential high-rise program citywide to encourage high-density development outside of Downtown San Jose.

Source: SVBJ

10th Street Distillery in San Jose

San Jose now has a whiskey distillery, which apparently is our first since Prohibition. It sits near our craft breweries at 2131 S. 10th St., just one building over from Strike Brewing. Two tech engineers decided to follow their dream and created 10th Street Distillery to make Scottish-style spirits right here in San Jose.

They carry a couple different types of whiskies, a Peated Single Malt (smokey) that has won multiple awards and a STR Single Malt that is smooth and slightly sweet. Total Wine & More as well as several liquor stores have started carrying the product. You can also find them in San Jose's top craft cocktail bars such as Haberdasher, Paper Plane, Miniboss, 55 South, District, and Five Points.

10th Street Distillery doesn't have a public tasting room setup yet, but they do offer tours and tasting events if you sign up on their website over here.

Bill.com is moving from Palo Alto to San Jose

Bill.com was the 2nd largest Bay Area tech IPO last year and they have decided to make San Jose their new home. They are moving from Palo Alto to 132,000 SQFT at 6220 America Center Drive. This is an office complex in Alviso that also features three Marriott Hotels (including an Aloft) and HP Enterprise's Headquarters.

They are nearly tripling their space from only 48,200 SQFT at 1810 Embarcadero. That means more jobs for San Jose at a fast-growing tech company whose shares are now public. Bill.com is currently worth just shy of $3 billion and employs over 500 people.

Source: SVBJ

Twitter is opening an office at Santana Row

Yet another tech giant is dipping their toes into San Jose. Twitter is leasing around 30,000 SQFT in Santana Row, which is enough for 150 to 200 employees.

This is leading to rumors that they are eyeing the massive 360,000 SQFT Santana West project across the street. That would make quite a nice second headquarters, similar to Splunk--one of their Santana Row neighbors. Eventually Santana West will have a million SQFT of office space which is plenty of room for a tech company to stretch out into.

Source: SVBJ

Verizon bringing 3,400 employees to San Jose

San Jose's Coleman Highline looks like it will be fully leased before construction is over. Verizon Communications will join Roku in leasing generous amounts of space at the property. Verizon is grabbing 640,000 SQFT across multiple buildings, which is enough for 3,400 employees. 2,400 of those will be coming from an existing campus in Sunnyvale.

Coleman Highline will eventually have 1.75 million SQFT of space across eight office buildings, two hotels, and retail spaces. Project completion is scheduled for 2021.

Source: SVBJ

Resident Roundtable: Life and Work in San Jose

A new video has been published by San Jose OED that focuses on three different people working and living in San Jose. It's short, but is an interesting and realistic discussion nonetheless.

San Jose ranked 2nd best small business growth city

For the 2nd year in a row, San Jose was ranked as the 2nd best metro for small businesses in the US.  The analysis was based on the financials of almost 30,000 companies. San Jose also had the highest average credit score of any city.

Miami took the crown for being the #1 growth city for small business, while San Francisco came in 3rd place. Below is the full list.

Top 25 Cities for Small Business 2019

1. Miami (No. 3)
2. San Jose, CA (No. 2)
3. San Francisco (No. 4)
4. New York (No. 1)
5. San Diego (No. 9)
6. Los Angeles (No. 5)
7. Boston (unranked)
8. Sacramento, CA (No. 10)
9. Baltimore (No. 16)
10. Washington, DC (No. 7)
11. Philadelphia (No. 22)
12. Chicago (No. 12)
13. Seattle (No. 14)
14. Riverside, CA (No. 6)
15. Minneapolis (unranked)
16. Phoenix (No. 11)
17. Las Vegas (No. 18)
18. Charlotte, NC (No. 24)
19. Nashville, TN (unranked)
20. Raleigh, NC (unranked)
21. Detroit (No. 20)
22. Oklahoma City (unranked)
23. Houston (No. 21)
24. Cleveland (unranked)
25. Pittsburgh (unranked)

Source: SJ Economy Blog

Google expanding to North San Jose

Google has a long term vision of building an epic 8 million SQFT campus in Downtown San Jose near Diridon. That project that will probably take a decade to come to fruition. Fortunately, there is another Google project in North San Jose with a much shorter horizon.

Google has just secured leases on three buildings totaling 611,535 SQFT that have yet to be constructed at 60 North Brokaw (near Casino M8trix). Peery-Arrillaga, the developer, has already requested permits to start construction. Two of the buildings would be eight stories tall, while the third is four stories.

The buildings could accommodate up to 4,900 employees, and they could start moving in as early as 2021. That sounds like ages from now, but is less than two years away. Since Mountain View real estate is completely tapped out, this is the first step in a long journey for Google to move the majority of their Silicon Valley operations to San Jose. Without major changes in building policies up north, San Jose is without a doubt Google's future.

Sources: SVBJ, San Jose Inside

Self-driving grocery deliveries coming to San Jose courtesy of a San Jose startup company

The timeline for self-driving cars has been significantly underestimated. Waymo is already running a limited number of rides to beta customers in Arizona with no safety driver. Tesla is 6 months away from enabling basic self-driving features on over 200,000 consumer cars. And AutoX Inc. just started doing self-driving grocery deliveries late last month.

AutoX is headquartered in North San Jose (off of Trimble) and has two satellite offices in China. They raised $43 million in fundy last year from Danhua Capital, MediaTek Ventures, and SAIC Capital.

Several residents in a geo-fenced area near the headquarters are already eligible for service. Customers can either pick what they want to be delivered from the app or make last minute purchasing decisions when picking up the groceries from the car. You read that correctly... the car itself is a store.

They just have a handful of vehicles today, but are looking to grow to 20 cars very soon and expand the service to Mountain View and Palo Alto. For more info, head over to AutoX.ai or watch the video below.

It's great to see a San Jose company both pushing technological boundaries and providing new services to their immediate community!

Source: SVBJ

Get More Done... Working with Virtual Assistants by SwagSam

SwagSam, Founder, of the podcast network WhatUp Silicon Valley just published his first book!

In the hustle that is Silicon Valley, we are all looking for an edge. We look at the latest trends and will try anything (within reason of course) to give ourselves a competitive edge. Always looking to increase productivity, increase bottom line … and in Silicon Valley to increase company culture!

If you can relate to this feeling that there just aren’t enough hours in a day then and want to reduce stress in your life; then SwagSam’s book “Success With Swag(ger)” is for you. In this book, SwagSam outlines just how he and his team at WhatUp Silicon Valley have used virtual assistants (VA’s)  to grow each of their respective businesses. It’s an actionable step-by-step guide to identifying what tasks that are wasting your time and guides you to hiring your first VA!

You can grab check out the book on Amazon by searching “SwagSam” or just clicking the link here.

WhatUp Silicon Valley is the podcast network on what’s trending in the South Bay for and by young professionals that live the Silicon Valley hustle.

8x8 is moving their HQ to Coleman Highline in San Jose

The Coleman Highline office project next to Avaya Stadium just scored an anchor tenant. 8x8 has reserved the entire first building, which is 162,000 SQFT. This is a 22,000 SQFT upgrade over their current headquarters (also in San Jose) with lots of room to grow in the future.

The entire Coleman Highline project will take up 1.5 million SQFT, all connected with aerial walkways. The first phase of the project should be ready by early 2019.

Source: SVBJ

Broadcom is moving its headquarters to San Jose

Broadcom is a Singapore-based semiconductor company that purchased Brocade for $5.9 billion late last year. The company had decided to take advantage of that acquisition and officially move its headquarters to the US, and even more specifically to San Jose. The announcement was actually made by Trump at a White House press conference. Why is this so significant? It means $20 billion (with a "b") in revenue will be pouring into the US. Only a fraction of that will impact the economy, but it is a significant announcement nonetheless. It also could mean more jobs in San Jose.

Broadcom has become one of the largest companies in the world with a total market cap of $110 billion.

Source: SVBJ

Microsoft looking to build a 1M SQFT campus in San Jose

The latest big tech company to take a serious look at San Jose is none other than the 800lb gorilla from Seattle. Microsoft has purchased close to 65 acres of "farmland" in North San Jose bound by 237, Zanker Road, and the Coyote Creek. They want to use the space to build either 1.2 million SQFT of light industrial space or a 436,880 SQFT data center and 728,000 SQFT of light industrial space.

Either of the options on the table would not bring as many jobs and tax dollars to the city as a traditional office complex, but it would be a great foot in the door as Microsoft currently has zero presence in San Jose proper. Microsoft has 1,600 employees in the area, but most are in Mountain View. With a grand total of 71,000 employees, San Jose could provide a viable opportunity to move more of their workforce into the tech capital of the world. They would be in good company as both Google and Apple and considering significant operations in San Jose.

Source: SVBJ (Subscription Required)

A^3 is developing flying cars in San Jose

It is starting to feel a lot like the future. Not only is every major auto manufacturer testing self-driving cars in the San Jose metro, but some companies are even starting to think beyond what we traditionally call a car. A^3, a division of Airbus, is working on an electric flying car called Vahana using very similar technology to the self-driving cars being tested today. It's equipped with 360 degree cameras, radar, lidar, and encrypted communications systems. The flying car also comes with redundant motors and a parachute should anything go wrong.

Vahana has 62 miles of range and transportation should cost somewhere around $2/mile, which is similar to today's taxi's (keep in mind self-driving cars will bring this cost down dramatically in just a few years).

It may seem like we are not going to see this type of technology anytime soon, but Dubai will already have an autonomous taxi system in place this year. Using flying cars to zip across the Bay Area and leave gridlock traffic behind might be realistic within a decade. The icing on the cake is that the technology is being developed right here in San Jose.

Source: SVBJ

Vahana - Future of Urban Air Mobility from Vahana on Vimeo.

What Up! Silicon Valley Podcast

I just found out about a killer weekly podcast that is mostly focused on San Jose and the South Bay. Sam Kabert and Sergio Oliveri started the podcast at the beginning of this year and they just released their 32nd episode. Topics include local businesses, networking, events, and sports. Most of the episodes are 30-40 minutes long and feature interviews with the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley. I would recommend starting with "Podcast 25: Top 10 Moments!" to get a feel for the podcast (embedded below).

You can learn more about What Up! Silicon Valley at the official website over here. Subscription options include iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. I also added a permalink under San Jose culture to the right.

Awesome job Sam and Sergio, thanks for putting this together for the Silicon Valley community!

San Jose Funding Roundup

Several San Jose companies have announced new funding rounds in the past couple months. This typically means more jobs, which also benefits our local economy, as well as exciting new product launches. Below are the beneficiaries of our venture capital ecosystem.

Outset Medical - Medical devices startup that created a portable kidney dialysis machine. They just raised $76.5 million in a Series C round. Outset is headquartered at 1830 Bering Drive near the airport.

Visier - Business intelligence startup that makes workforce analytics software for HR departments. Visier raised a $45 million Series D round and is located at 650-550 S. Winchester Boulevard.

CNEX Labs - They build solid-state storage controllers and software for the next generation of data centers. They just raised a new round of $13.2 million and the funding round was led by Microsoft Ventures. CNEX is located at 2880 Stevens Creek Boulevard.

Chowbotics - They make a robot named Sally that can make over 1,000 different types of salads. Chowbotics is a brand new company that raised a $5 million Series A round and have pilot robots at Mama Mia in Campbell and Galvanize's coworking space in San Francisco.

Bonus: Western Digital did not receive a new funding round--they don't need it with $13 billion of annual revenue--but they did officially move their headquarters from Southern California to San Jose (Great Oaks area off of North First Streed).


Sources: SVBJ, SVBJ, SVBJ, SVBJ, and SVBJ

Hapa Brewery opens at Midtown Arts Mercantile

San Jose just welcomed its newest craft brewery, conveniently located at the Midtown Arts Mercantile (460 Lincoln Ave.). Hapas's Brewing Company is kicking things off with three different beers: a blond ale, and IPA, and a mocha porter. You can sample all three in their 1,000 SQFT taproom and outdoor patio. Eventually the selection will grow to eight beers and Hapa's is planning to bring in food trucks on weekends.

The taproom is open Wednesday-Thursday from 4pm-9pm, Friday from 3pm-9pm, Saturday from 11am-9pm, and Sunday from 11am-6pm. While you are there you can also check out Chromatic Coffee, Good Karma Bikes, and Terra Amico Studios. For more details, have a look at the full press release below or visit the Hapa's Brewing Company website.

Hapa’s Brewery, Inc. joins city’s robust brewing community

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Adding to a burgeoning craft beer scene in San José, Hapa’s Brewing Co. will celebrate the official opening on Saturday, Feb. 25 of its brewery and taproom inside Midtown Arts Mercantile – the former cannery turned artisanal “maker space” in the city’s Midtown neighborhood. The opening ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. at the facility, 460 Lincoln Ave.

The 7,500-square-foot facility is the brainchild of childhood friends Derek Tam and Brian Edwards, who started brewing in Edward’s mother’s Los Gatos home a couple of years ago as a hobby. As they worked to hone their craft, it didn’t take long to home in on a business opportunity.

“There were breweries popping up everywhere, and we realized San José is developing an active brewing ecosystem,” Tam said. “We said it would be so cool to come back to the area where we grew up and turn this hobby into an actual business.”

The pair joined up with experienced Sonoma County brewer Peter Burrell, with Edwards leaving his tech job to work full time alongside Burrell. About 18 months ago, the team signed a lease with San José-based SWENSON for space inside Midtown Arts Mercantile. The 40,000-squarefoot facility was designed from the ground up for manufacturers, artists, and creative retailers. Other occupants include Chromatic Coffee, Good Karma Bikes, and Terra Amico Studio.

San José Economic Development staff assisted the developer of Hapa’s Brewing with project review, seeing a chance to preserve a historic industrial building for modern “maker” uses.

"We know there's lots of demand for industrial uses throughout San José, and Hapa's arrival at Midtown Arts Mercantile shows these older buildings can be a perfect fit when creatively retrofitted," said Kim Walesh, Economic Development Director and Deputy City Manager for the City of San Jose. "We're happy to welcome Hapa's Brewing to the midtown neighborhood."

Hapa’s Brewing kicks off with three brews – including a blond ale, an IPA, and a mocha porter - as it ramps up to a planned eight taps. The facility comprises a 1,000 square foot taproom and an outdoor patio, complete with roll-up doors. While it doesn’t offer its own food, Hapa’s plans to bring in food trucks on weekend afternoons. For now, Hapa’s is focused on the taproom experience, and is researching wholesale agreements with local bars, restaurants, and grocers.

“Hapa’s is exactly the kind of tenant we are seeking for Midtown Arts Mercantile: A unique local business that will provide the neighborhood with a fantastic social gathering space,” said Forrest Cerrato, portfolio manager for real estate developer SWENSON.

Hapa’s joins a small but growing ecosystem of craft beer and other craft drink-related businesses in San José. In the last two years, San José’s venerable Gordon Biersch has been joined by Strike Brewing, Hermitage Brewing, Santa Clara Valley Brewing and Coterie Cellars. Last year, GigaYeast – which makes liquid yeast for commercial and home brewers – opened on Qume Drive.

For more information on Hapas Brewing, visit hapasbrewing.com.

About San José Office of Economic Development
The San José Office of Economic Development is committed to a vital, competitive San José
economy that increases prosperity for people and companies. OED guides the city’s economic
strategy, provides assistance for business success, connect employers with trained workers, and
provides art and cultural resources to our community. For more information, go to
sjeconomy.com.

About City of San José
San José, Capital of Silicon Valley, is the largest city in Northern California and the 10th largest
city in the nation, with an ethnically diverse population of more than one million. San José was
founded in 1777, once served as the state capital of California, and encompasses 180 square
miles. The City’s website is sanjoseca.gov.
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New co-working space opening at Santana Row

Co-working continues to increase in popularity in Silicon Valley, especially with entrepreneurs, start-ups, and remote employees for large organizations. Not only does it reduce overall costs by sharing resources between multiple companies, but it creates a culture and atmosphere that you won't find sitting in a home office with dogs barking or a baby crying in the background. Downtown San Jose has several coworking spaces such as NextSpace and WeWork. Finally our other urban center--Santana Row--has one as well, and it looks quite nice.

Spaces Santana Row will launch on February 20, 2017 at 3031 Tisch Way, and offers inspiring collaborative workspace for San Jose entrepreneurs and innovators. Founded in Amsterdam on the idea that “success breeds more success,” Spaces Santana Row is Spaces’ latest location in North America and the second location in Silicon Valley, joining sister property Spaces Menlo Park which opened in summer 2016.

Spaces Santana Row offers the following amenities:

• 5,300 SQFT business club 
• Co-working memberships starting at $330 per month
• 100 private offices available for rent starting at $819 per month
• 3 meeting rooms available to members and community residents
• Concierge-level hospitality services
• On-demand services including dry cleaning, IT support, floral, etc.
• Learning and social events hosted by local businesses and influencers

Of course, tenants also happen to be at the tail end of Santana Row. That might be the biggest amenity of all, walking access to two dozen restaurants, bars, retail, movies, and entertainment. 

For more information, head over here.

Why it’s better to work in San Jose than San Francisco

Guest Post by Fabianne Rico

As a professional working in tech in San Jose, something I hear too much from people is that San Jose isn’t considered as part of the “real bay area” compared to places like Oakland and San Francisco.

I even hear this from people I know personally that work in San Francisco who brag about their daily free food and all the cool company events they get to go to.

“Oh, who do you work for in San Jose again? Must be a pretty small company.”

For your information, I work for a mobile design and development agency called Impekable. Even if our company is on the smaller side, our work’s quality and the awards we’ve won speak for themselves. Not to mention we’ve worked with companies like Google, HP, Motorola, and Groupon,to name a few. This is a company I’m proud to work for, and what reinforces this sentiment is we are a San Jose-based company.

Don’t get it twisted. I love SF as much as the next guy. It’s a wonderful hub of culture and activity, and to add onto that, I’m a huge fan of cool breezes and fog. However, the smugness of some people I talk to from this supposed “real bay area” irks me because despite the nice parts, it can be argued that San Jose is actually a better place to work than San Francisco.

Let’s start with one of the more obvious reasons.

Unless you’re legitimately rich enough to afford the price of rent in SF, chances are you’re living somewhere outside the center. Even so, you’ll be looking at rooms for upwards of $1000/mo anywhere north of Santa Clara.

With that, you’ll be living pretty far from your company’s top floor office in the city. Studies show that longer commutes contribute to higher levels of anxiety and a decline in life satisfaction, so make sure you have your favorite podcast prepared because the commute is gonna be looooooong.

Oh, and once you arrive, good luck finding parking. Expect to spend 15-30 minutes on average circling the block to find a space that isn’t occupied by the red and white signs on otherwise usable parking meters. Believe it or not, your SF employer might not even provide parking, so you might be on your own there.

If you have to resort to the lengthy commutes, you’re probably someone who lives closer to Downtown San Jose than San Francisco. Even if you’re more in the north, it’s faster to go against rush hour traffic anyway.

There is more parking in San Jose as well with a good amount of car parks nearby, at a reasonable price. In addition, local employers and work spaces in Downtown San Jose simply buy their employees monthly parking passes to the city’s car parks.

At this point, it’s a given that employees in San Jose have better commutes than San Francisco, but what about the locations they work at?

Unless you work for one of the larger tech companies downtown like Adobe, Oracle, EY, or Accenture, you probably can’t afford a giant SF office. However, another benefit to being based in downtown San Jose is access to the many options for coworking spaces nearby, for every budget.

Whether you’re an up and coming start up or a self-employed individual, it’s always nice to have friends.

NextSpace is the coworking space where our office is located and we enjoy being a part of the community by interacting with other companies in the space during weekly happy hours or walkabout lunch. Being a member of a coworking space provides us with the opportunity to network with other NextSpace companies and even created new business connections for us.

Founders Floor is just down the street from our office, so sometimes we’ll host speaking events and we take some time to appreciate that sweet downtown view! Another coworking space is WeWork that recently opened up on the 6th floor of the nearby Valley Towers in downtown. They have a pretty awesome setup with beer on tap and their trendy interior design, similar to the aesthetic you would see in San Francisco offices, but without any of the hassle.

WeWork San Jose has been an awesome place for us to host our design workshops, so our students interested in starting a career in app design can have a taste of the Silicon Valley dreamer lifestyle. I mean does YOUR classroom have a view like this?

Downtown San Jose is lucky to have so many options as far as where to work, but what options do they have for lunch?

Another huge perk of working downtown is the food! If you have a certain food craving, it’s very likely that it’s very close by with options to choose from like Thai food, Malaysian, Indian, Greek, delicious sandwiches, Halal, Mexican, pizza, Vietnamese, sushi, even Carribean! YOU NAME IT!

All these food options can definitely be credited to the diversity San Jose has to offer. Diversity should be one of the critical reasons why the 7th most diverse city in the United States, San Jose is better to work than San Francisco, which was ranked at 20. For being the so-called capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose is aware that innovation is not a vacuum. It requires exposure to different backgrounds and collaborating with those who come from different walks of life.

As a San Jose based company, we can’t help but take pride in the city we’re in. However, people who work anywhere in the Bay Area are blessed to operate in such a progressive region with a strong sense of community that welcomes innovation and diversity with open arms.

And yes, just in case it wasn’t clear enough, South Bay still counts Bay Area. Cheers.

About the author:

Fabianne Rico is a Marketing Manager for Impekable, a design and development agency that specializes in using the latest technology and trends to create apps that are both useful and usable. Go to Impekable.com for more info.