Saturday Stats: San Jose is the #1 Best-Paying City for Women

The city with the highest salaries for women isn't New York, it isn't Chicago, and it's not even San Francisco. At an average wage of $67,052, San Jose has the highest salaries for female worker in the US (and I imagine the world). Another nice stat is that 43.7% of all the San Jose women in the workforce have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Here are the rankings for California cities on the list:

• 1.) San Jose - $67,052
• 2.) San Francisco - $65,526
• 8.) Oxnard - $54,800
• 16.) Sacramento - $50,794
• 17.) San Diego - $50,670
• 18.) Los Angeles - $50,593

Source: Forbes

Last Call for Veggielution's Avant Garden Event!

from Veggielution by julia

This unforgettable event is just around the corner, have you bought your tickets?

April 13th, 2012 7pm – 10pm

$10 + 1  free food ticket online, $12 at the door

The evening will unfold at The Armory

240 N 2nd St

San Jose, CA 95112

a·vant-garde

1. a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo
2. innovative and ahead of the majority
3. a group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts

Ignite your senses for a night of visualizing food and feasting upon art…

Devour a variety of farm fresh treats prepared by talented local chefs, and enjoy a silent art auction featuring farm-inspired art produced by visionary local artists. Avant Garden harnesses San Jose’s creative talent to support Veggielution’s growing Community Farm. We are pushing the boundaries of food justice by redefining our relationship with our land, our food, and each other.
Come experience a new way to think about food in our community, through the taste of our Spring harvest, and captivating visual artistry!
Kids ages 12 and under get in free! If you buy your ticket online we will add 1 free Food Ticket to get you started. Additional Food Tickets can be purchased for $3 each at the event. Event Tickets also available for $12 at the door.

Relectric Triples Size of San Jose HQ

Relectric supplies circuit breakers and electrical distribution and control equipment. They are are moving into a new North San Jose headquarters with triple the space (77,000 sqft) and are more than doubling their staff. The CEO of the company said that interest in "greener" products is what is helping fuel their growth.

Source: SJBJ

The Bay Area's Largest Food Truck Event Ever is This Saturday in San Jose!

This Saturday from 11am to 5pm at San Jose's History Park, an epic food truck event is going down. In fact, this is going to be the largest food truck event ever in the Bay Area. Over 20 trucks will be present, selling $2 tacos of every kind imaginable. In addition to the trucks, there will be live music, lucha libre wrestling, an air accordion championship, a street market, and most of the great museums in History Park should be accessible. This is definitely going to be worth checking out! To get tickets, just click here.

Food Trucks

The feast day will be filled with tastings, art, and performances with a standardized taco price of only $2 from over twenty-five of the best food trucks from San Jose to San Francisco. Short rib tacos, nacho tacos, Vietnamese shrimp tacos, and even ice cream tacos will be on the day’s menu. Tacos in the competition will be voted on by attendees. Finalists will be judged by a celebrity panel and prizes will be awarded based on quality and presentation. More trucks to be announced!

SOUTH BAY

Bigg Shrimp’n – Shrimp	House of Siam on Wheels – Thai	Louisiana Territory – Cajun
MoGo BBQ – Korean/Mexican	No Way Jose – Mexican	Soulnese – Chinese/Soul
Treatbot – Ice Cream	Wow Silog Truck – Filipino

EAST BAY

Grill Stars– BBQ

LOS ANGELES

Nom Nom Truck– Vietnamese

PENINSULA

Curry Up Now – Indian	MoBowl – Nori	Oaxacan Kitchen – Mexican
Tacos de Los Altos – Mexican	Whisk on Wheels – Local Organic

SAN FRANCISCO

Chairman— Baos	KoJa Kitchen – Korean/Japanese	Iz It – Hawaiianese
Sanguchon – Peruvian	Seoul on Wheels – Korean

Wednesday Wishlist: Learn From San Diego

Today's Wednesday Wishlist is actually from Mark at the Think Bigger San Jose Blog. I was just going to link to it, but I really think everyone here should read this. I've been to San Diego many times over the past couple years and agree entirely with Mark. Please also subscribe to his blog over here, and look out for Mark's first published article in the latest issue of Content Magazine!

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San Jose’s downtown should follow in San Diego’s footsteps: Urban, dense, and a variety of architecture

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Mark

After taking a trip earlier this month to San Diego, and seeing a downtown that is vibrant and active, I returned to San Jose with a renewed vision for potential of this city. Though on the outset SD and SJ do not appear to have any useful correlations, one obvious connection on the outset, is that both cities’ downtowns that are near large airports. Though SJ’s downtown is directly in the flight path, SD has also had to deal with height restrictions on many of its buildings. Be that as it may, SD has been able to build most of its highrises around 30 floors, which is taller than anything in SJ, but not too far off from The 88, which stands at 22 floors. Yet despite most of the buildings in SD being under 30 floors, why is there diverse look, not looking flat like SJ’s skyline? The main reason that downtown SD works even at a restricted height is that it is more dense, more urban, and has more variety of shapes and looks than SJ.

Downtown San Diego

According toSkyscraperpage.com, SJ is listed at 70th in the country for amount of buildings 9 floors or higher, making it the most populous city in the nation with least amount of tall buildings. The next closest city with a million or more people is Phoenix, and it sits at 44th with 91 buildings. SJ is listed with cities like Pompano Beach population 90,000 and Madison, population 220,000. SJ is 7th in the state between the cities of Pasadena and Irvine, both with populations under 200,000. SD on the other hand has 145 buildings, of which only 16 are above 30 floors and only 5 are above 40 floors. But a large catalyst to this growth was the construction of Petco Park, a downtown baseball stadium.

San Diego's diversity of building heights and styles

Since 2005, a year after Petco Park opened, 37 buildings 12 floors or higher were built and 2 more are currently under construction. In that same time frame in SJ, 10 buildings were constructed 9 floors or higher, including the recently finished Casino M8trix and the First Community property on N. 4th.

Part of the slow growth problem is a result of two things. One is that Barry Swenson Builders hold a majority of land slotted for development. Though BSB has done many projects in the past in SJ and knows how to navigate the system of permitting and building in SJ, BSB holds a monopoly. If BSB doesn’t have funding, nothing is being built. So if BSB isn’t building, no one is building. Second, the city seems to have a hand in making it difficult for developers to get the projects going and completed in an efficient and timely manner. This creates hesitancy for outside developers to want to come build in SJ. Recycling the BSB monopoly. Just this week Casino M8trix sued the city of SJ for slow processing of security permits which were applied for in March 2011. The process normally takes 180 days, yet a year later they have not been approved by the SJPD. This move could cost the casino and the city millions. If the city can’t figure out its own permitting process and timetable, then how are developers who have investors’ money on the line, going to plan and build their buildings in a cost effective manner? Also, the city’s permits are outrageously expensive which again is prohibitive to building. One merchant at the San Pedro Square Market was quoted at $1500 for three electrical sockets, an overhead light and a sink. The actually cost was over $4500 when the permitting process was said and done. If this is how the city is treating small businesses than how exorbitant are the fees for large scale building projects?

The answer to SJ’s downtown short comings is to follow SD. Everyone in the SJ development community is in favor of getting the A’s a ballpark downtown. But whether or not that effort succeeds, there are two solutions. First is a more devoted urban approach. For decades, downtown has been built and planned by mostly suburban dwellers. Most if not all lived outside downtown. Urban-ism through the view of a suburbanite doesn’t work. The results are what is standing in downtown.

An aerial view of downtown San Jose

But changes have occurred. Over last half decade, more focus and input has been applied to building a downtown that residents can actually live in. The best example is the 88 condo tower. It has a Safeway on the ground floor and it received a perfect walking score for the residents. It’s location is close to everything important: restaurants, bars, museums, theaters, art galleries, SJSU, and businesses. Another success story is the San Pedro Square Market. Though it is still filling the retail spaces, it has already shown that it will become a very important anchor to the San Pedro area and future housing developments planned around it.

A second solution, is more density and variety. Since SJ is limited on heights- though the height ceiling has not totally been explored- density is the other answer. Because the buildings are both short and spread out, the downtown feels empty and spacious, almost un-urban. Most buildings in SD completely fill the parcel right up to the sidewalk, something vary few buildings in SJ do. Also buildings in SD have modern architectural designs, something that can only be said about the Axis, and maybe the 360 Residences in SJ. The urban artistic community is one thing that SJ is doing really well, and maybe these are the people who should be involved in designing new buildings. As was talked about earlier, BSB holds a majority of the properties, and they have a “formula” for cost effective, quickly built designs. Unfortunately, that manifests in a lot of the buildings that look alike. A similarity of buildings in a city can look good, and helps define the city, but uniformity and repetition is not. Pick any modern building in SJ besides the two mentioned earlier (Axis, 360 Residences), and it can be found in any city in California. In fact many of the designs are so similar, one could argue that the same building does exists somewhere else in California.

The potential of downtown SJ is limitless. But in order to have a vibrant urban center, we need to look at other city’s successful developing stories and use experience from real urban planners. Though SD has a much larger population, SJ is gearing up for 1.25M people by 2040, so looking at how SD constructed the downtown could be a key to turning SJ’s downtown around. It will only be through passionate urban residents demanding a better downtown that change will occur. The focus must be on more density, more architectural variety, and better urban planning.

Almaden Ranch Development

I'm going to start off by saying that I think we're going to have some mixed opinions on this one. Last month the city council approved a 350,000 sqft "big box" retail development between Oakridge Mall and Almaden Plaza. It is a $30-50M project that is not being subsidized. The only rumored tenant so far is a Dick's Sporting Goods.

Now my first question is, what other "big box" tenants or chain restaurants could they possibly add there that don't already exist in the area? If you look at the map below, every chain you can imagine already exists somewhere in the vicinity. There are already millions of square feet of car-oriented retail in the area.

My second question is... in today's economy is it better to snatch the opportunity for a development such as this one or would it have been better to wait for a better use of this acreage? I would have preferred a mixed use development with housing, office, and local retail that is pedestrian friendly. This seems like a great place for an urban village. It's a tough call... take the tax money now or sit on empty land hoping for a better proposal in the future.

Source: SJBJ

Content Magazine Pick-Up Party!

The latest print edition of Content Magazine is launching today and they're throwing a "pick-up" party with some of the people actually featured in the magazine. This is the best publication ever for San Jose fans and enthusiasts, so if you haven't subscribed yet then you definitely need to check out this event (and you might as well enjoy a glass of wine while you're there). All of the details are below!

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CONTENT Magazine believes that the strength of a community is found developing relationships. In this digital age, the tools of communication make it possible for us to eventually connect in real friendship. Nothing can replace a smile, a handshake or a meaningful face to face conversion. We print because we believe in the power of touch. So, we are having a Pick-Up Party: come greet and meet other Subscribers and Content readers as well as some of the individuals featured within the pages.

Happy Easter Everyone!

If you're looking for something fun to do with the family today, there is an Easter Egg hunt in St. James Park today at noon. Details below:

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Easter Egg Hunt in Downtown San Jose

from Downtown San Jose Real Estate by SVLOFTS

 Spring is slowly creeping in and events are blossoming outdoors in Downtown San Jose. On Sunday, April 8^th at noon, the quest for eggs will begin at the Children’s Play Area in St. James Park.  Egg hunts, a popular holiday tradition enjoyed by children of all ages, will take place in big piece of real estate known as St. James’ Park lawn area so take some time to enjoy the spring breeze, fresh air and candy-filled eggs. Please RSVP with Ragan Henninger at district3@sanjoseca.gov if you plan on attending. If you live in one of the nearby communities, such as Park Townsend, The Plaza, 350 N. 2nd Street Lofts, or City Heights, plan on hopping on by for some good old fashioned Easter fun.

What: Easter Egg Hunt
When: April 8^th at noon
Where:  Children’s Play Area in St. James Park (2nd St and St James St, Downtown San Jose)