San Jose's 105th Annual Veteran's Day Parade this Weekend (largest in Northern California)

Each year since 1918 the United Veterans Council of Santa Clara County has hosted a Veterans Day Parade with the support of the City of San Jose. This year the ceremony will begin on Saturday, November 11th at 10:45am at Plaza de Cesar Chavez. 

The parade itself starts at noon and will go from the SAP Center along Santa Clara Street, turn on Market towards Plaza de Cesar Chavez and end at San Carlos Street. For more information, head over here.

San Jose's Frontier Village Remnants

Did you know San Jose once had a Western-themed theme park that opened in the 1960s? A Palo Alto entrepreneur built Frontier Village for $2 million after being inspired at Disneyland. It was built on about 60 acres near Hayes Mansion.

Some of the highlights were staged gunfights, saloons, and several rides including a roller coaster, a Ferris wheel, railroad, canoe rides, and horse-drawn carriages. An expansion was planned in 1977, but neighbors complained and the San Jose City Council denied the plans. Unfortunately, due to this and further competition from Marriott's Great America the park closed in 1980.

However, you can find all sorts of remnants and tributes for the theme park at Edenvale Garden Park across from Hayes Mansion. This includes five scale buildings placed where their original structures were and a play structure that is themed after the park's railroad. Next time you are visiting Hayes Mansion, it's worth a detour to check out the park and see how many references you can find related to a shuttered theme park.

Source: SJtoday

Communications Hill expanding again with Phases 3 and 4

Communications Hill is a large master planned neighborhood in Central San Jose. It already has thousands of single family and multi-family homes and is famous for "the stairs," a unique urban hike with 252 stepps. (last two images below).

New development permits are seeking the construction of an additional 800+ multi-family units and commercial space in a site bound by Altino Boulevard, Hillsdale, and the Union Pacific railroad. KB Home South Bay would be the developer and it would span 140 acres.

Phases 3 and 4 of Communications Hill are supposed to include a mix of single-family detached homes, townhouses, and flats. The current scope of the project would include 505 homes, hundreds of apartment's across several five and six-story buildings, up to 32,873 of commercial/retail space, and 16,215 SQFT of amenity space.

There is already quite a bit of traffic along 87 due to Communication Hill so it will be interesting to see how well the expansion can be accommodated.

Source: SF YIMBY

Urban Catalyst moving forward with two high-rise residential towers near San Jose City Hall, updates plans and renders

One of Downtown San Jose's most ambitious developers and proponents has acquired the final puzzle piece needed to built its two towers named Echo and Icon. They purchased a parking lot on North Fourth Street across from Miro that completes the space necessary for their project. 

Echo is a 27-story residential tower with 415 homes. Icon was supposed to be a 22-story office building, but given the state of the market they are planning to convert it to a 26-story residential tower with 650 units instead.

Below are the updated renders envisioning Icon as a residential tower as opposed to office. Icon is the tower on the left bordering Santa Clara Street. It would replace a space previously used as a gas station along Downtown San Jose's main street.

There is no estimated timeline, but I hope Echo and Icon come sooner rather than later. Injecting over 1,000 homes into the central part of Downtown San Jose with easy access to transit (including a future BART station) would help accelerate its transition to a thriving 24x7 urban center. 

Source: SVBJ, SF YIMBY

Previous Renders:

What does Google's generative AI think San Jose will look like in 2050?

Several months ago I asked ChatGPT what San Jose would look like in the future. The results were interesting but pretty bland.

Today I tried the same experiment with Google's competitor to ChatGPT, Bard. The images generated were a lot more vivid and colorful (literally).

Of these four options, which one do you think San Jose is most likely to look like in 2050?

 

1.) Still relatively flat with a few standout skyscrapers

2.) Futuristic, dense, and colorful metropolis

3.) Minor iterative improvement over what we have today

4.) Post-apocalyptic wasteland (but we did have skyscrapers at one point)

San Jose Roots: Celebrating our Heritage at the San Pedro Square Market today

Today there is a special event happening at the San Pedro Square Market today from 1-4pm with rare access to the Gonzales/Peralta Adobe and the Carmela & Thomas Fallon House. San Jose Roots is a celebration of our city's cultural diversity and is hosted by History San Jose, Mosaic, and The San Pedro Square Market.

The event will feature cultural performances, hands-on activities, and community booths from local and cultural organizations. There will also be free tours of the Gonzales/Peralta Adobe and the Carmela & Thomas Fallon House. This does not happen often, so it would be an ideal opportunity to see these two historic buildings.

The Gonzales/Peralta Adobe is situated in the middle of the San Pedro Square Market and is the oldest building in San Jose. The Carmela & Thomas Fallon House is across the street and represents an early Victorian home. Thomas Fallon was mayor of San Jose from 1859-1860.

In order to provide more space for the festivities, St. John Street will be closed in front of The San Pedro Square Market.

South FIRST FRIDAY Nov 3rd, 2023 in #DTSJ #ArtwalkSJ

South FIRST FRIDAYS is back today will all new exhibits across multiple galleries in three different districts. Everything is open from at least 5-10pm. Participating venues include ANNO DOMINI, the Institute of Contemporary Art, KALEID Gallery, Works San Jose, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, the SoFA Market, MACLA, Art Ark Gallery, MACHU PICCHU, Natural Do Salon, 1Culture, and Chopsticks Alley Gallery. 

There are a few special items worth noting for this month. You can go to the California Theatre and watch a free sneak peak of The Barber of Seville at 5:45pm, 6:30pm, 7:15pm, and 8pm. 1Culture is handing out Halloween treats for kids. Also, Phantom Galleries is presenting a special Gianfranco Paolozzi solo exhibition at The Pierce and the artist will be in attendance from 5-9pm.

It all goes down today, November 3rd. As usual admission is free and all ages are welcome. Click here for a preview of featured art! Below is a map with all of the galleries to check out across all three different districts.

"McTerrorsaurus" ceramics by Kurt Salinas at Chopsticks Gallery

110 townhomes proposed in North San Jose at existing office site

As the office market struggles to recover, project after project has been pivoting to housing. The latest proposal is coming from SummerHill Homes and would involve replacing a two-story office building with 110 townhomes on a 5.1-acre site at 90 East Tasman Drive. 

This is a great location in the middle of the tech world's "Golden Triangle." It's in front of a VTA Light Rail stop and is a few stations away from either Levi's Stadium to the west or Milpitas BART and The Great Mall to the east.

While townhomes in many ways would certainly be an improvement over the current 1980s era office buildings at the current site, it's still a far cry from what Santa Clara is doing off of Tasman just over 1 mile away. That site is also 5-acres, but instead of townhomes it features a 23-story apartment building with 509 apartment and 191 senior housing units in a secondary tower. That is literally seven times the density of the San Jose proposal (see below).

The land here is extremely valuable. It would make sense to move a bit beyond townhomes at this point in North San Jose, especially with such great access to existing transit networks. 

Source: The Mercury News, TheRegistry

Willow Glen Christmas Trolley Rides

It's getting to be that time of year again! Willow Glen is doing a holiday trolley ride through both the commercial and residential parts of Willow Glen to view all of the holiday decorations. The trolly is an old fashioned cable car that seats up to 32 people.

The rides take place from December 7-10 and December 14-21 from 5:15pm to 9pm. Each ride takes about 30 minutes and costs $20 for kids and $40 for Adults. The trolley boards in front of Bank of America at 1245 Lincoln Avenue. There is also plenty of free public parking in the Bank of America lot, courtesy of the Willow Glen Business Association.

If you're wondering why I'm posting this so early, well many of the dates have already sold out. Now would be the time to book your holiday trolly ride over here.

Happy Halloween 2023! 🎃🦇👻

Hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween tonight! If you have a favorite neighborhood for trick-or-treating please post it in the comments or on X (Twitter).

Also, please be sure to check out our "wishlist" post for Halloween in the Park!

Halloween in Japantown San Jose

Japantown is also throwing a major Halloween event tomorrow. They have actually been doing a Halloween event since 2003. In 2017 it became so popular they closed off major streets.

Trick-or-treating starts at 4:30pm with most of the SJ Japantown businesses participating. Then you have San Jose Taiko performances, dancing, a haunted house, and arts & crafts.

There should be no shortage of options tomorrow to celebrated one of the most fun holidays out there.

Trick or Treat in Willow Glen

Downtown Willow Glen is hosting their annual trick-or-treat event tomorrow from 11am-12:30pm for toddlers and 3pm-4:30pm for school-aged kids. Several stores along Lincoln avenue will be handing out candy at this time and will be fully decked out for Halloween.

Then after 5pm, you can take your kids into the Willow Glen residential neighborhoods which are one of the top areas to trick-or-treat in San Jose.

Three county offices relocated to North San Jose

A former Cisco office off Tasman in North San Jose will now provide a variety of Santa Clara County services in North San Jose. These include the Assessor's Office, the Department of Tax and Collections, and the Clerk-Recorder's Office.

These services used to be at 70 W. Hedding Street and 8523 North First Street and could be inconvenient when it comes to parking (which was mostly metered). It could also be a long walk from parking to the County offices, which are next to Courthouses and the San Jose Main Jail. On the other hand, the new offices have plentiful free and convenient parking yet are also still close to VTA bus routes and VTA Light Rail.

The new campus also has a special surprise for couples that are getting married--a brand new indoor and outdoor wedding chapel!

Source: SVBJ

Green energy startup opening 50,000 SQFT factory in San Jose to turn bricks into batteries

A battery can be a lot of different things. One form I didn't expect was a brick. Antora Energy found a way to store heat inside of carbon blocks and then storing them while the brick stays at temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius or higher. When energy is needed, the system can leverage that heat for industrial uses or convert the heat back to electricity.

The 50,000 SQFT manufacturing facility will be built in North San Jose and should be completed in 2024. The first brick batteries are also expected to be manufactured and delivered to customers in 2024.

Source: BayAreaINNO

Tamien Station broke ground

A 555-unit midrise project just broke ground in the Tamien neighborhood just south of Downtown San Jose. It's a partnership between the VTA, Core Companies, and Republic Urban Properties and will cost around $270 million to build across three phases.

Phase one is 135 affordable housing units with a 3,000 SQFT daycare. It'll have 20 studios, 44 one-bedroom, 37 two-bedroom, and 34 three-bedroom apartments.

One of the highlights of this project is it will have immediate access to a Caltrain, VTA Lightrail, and multiple VTA bus lines.

Source: SF Yimby

64 affordable homes coming to South San Jose

Earlier this week the San Jose City Council unanimously approved a 64-unit affordable housing project at 2388 S. Bascom Avenue near the border with Campbell. The project will replace a single-story 2,228 SQFT Kirk's Steakburgers with a 6-story building. 

63 of the 64 units would be reserved for affordable housing. The one market rate unit would be for the property's manager. 44 of the units will be two or three bedrooms while the rest will one bedroom apartments.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Wishlist - Halloween in the Park (Part XV)

As Halloween approaches, it is time to resurrect one of my top event wishlist items for San Jose. "Halloween in the Park."

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. It's the one day where you get to interact with your neighbors and the wider community. The level of creativity in decorations and costumes is also the most eclectic and interesting out of all the holidays for me--whether that's for trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, or work events.

In October it's tradition for The San Jose Blog have a wish-list post for Halloween in the Park. The idea is to build on the momentum that Christmas in the Park brings to San Jose each year and create something of similar scale for the month of October. A lot of the infrastructure such as wiring, lighting, and booths might even be able to be shared between the events. The goal would be to make Downtown San Jose the epicenter of October Halloween experiences, much as it is today with Christmas in the Park.

Below you will find brainstorming ideas we have collected for this concept so far over the years. Please have a look and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments or on X (Twitter). Thanks!

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The largest draw to Downtown San Jose for many years now has been Christmas in the Park. It has continued to grow year after year and brings in visitors from all over the Bay Area. It's economic impact is substantial and helps keep many Downtown businesses and restaurants alive.

What would you think about a similar event for Halloween? Picture Downtown lit up in orange and purple with elaborate Halloween displays assembled by local artists. Perhaps infrastructure could even be shared with Christmas in the Park (e.g. retail booths). A strong event in October would help maintain traffic between the summer months and Christmas in the Park. Here are the ideas we have so far:

• Animated Halloween Displays
• Created by local artists
• Analogous to the Christmas displays that attract many families during Christmas in the Park (almost half a million visitors)
• Family friendly so that everyone can enjoy it (PG/PG13, perhaps around the same level as Great America Halloween Haunt)
• Halloween Lighting
• Orange, purple, and green LED lighting on trees
• May be possible to use programmable LED lighting that can go from Halloween colors to Christmas colors with the push of a button, allowing the lights to stay up for Christmas in the Park as well and reducing setup/take-down costs.
• Halloween Food
• Booths with candied apples, chocolates, candy, pumpkin seeds, etc.
• Food trucks
• Trick-or-treating station - a free piece of candy to anyone wearing a costume any day in October (could also be used to hand out promotional flyers for Downtown events/businesses/resources)
• Retail Booths selling Halloween items, for example:
• Artwork (paintings, glass pumpkins, etc.)
• Home decor/crafts like candles
• Light-up hats/necklaces/bracelets
• Costumes
• Zombie/Halloween make-up station 
• Halloween-themed Carnival Games
• Pirates of Emerson and Candlelighters (Fremont) do a good job of providing family-friendly games themed around Halloween
• A handful of children's rides could also be added to the Paseo and reused for Christmas in the Park
• Interactive Art
• Subzero/ZERO1-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Halloween-themed video game kiosks and/or arcades
• Pumpkins
• Instead of the sponsored Christmas trees in Christmas in the Park, how about decorated Pumpkins (can even be Styrofoam so there is no mess/decay)?
• Pumpkin carving station for families. 
• Pumpkin carving contest.
• Costumed Entertainers
• Walking around the area, not necessarily scaring people but adding to the ambiance and providing photo opportunities for families
• Haunts / Mazes
• Would be ideal if these were nearby, perhaps in vacant retails spaces, surface parking lots, the San Jose Convention Center tent, or at SJSU.
• Could partners with one of the established San Jose haunt providers such as the Winchestor Mystery House or The Bernal SCREAM.
• Potential Events
• Zombie Crawl / 5k Run
• Dia De Los Muertos Events (already quite a few today)
• Halloween/Dia De Los Muertos Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball
• Pet costume contests and pet-friendly events

Inspirations:

• Winchester Mystery House Unhinged
• Candle Lighters
• Pirates of Emerson
• The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze (photos below)

Project for 900 homes moves forward near Little Portugal and San Jose's next BART station

The city of San Jose just completed the environmental review for a mixed-use project close to Little Portugal at 1325 East Julian St. The project would have four 10-story buildings with 633 apartments, 127 reserved for affordable housing, an 11,500 SQFT of ground-floor retail. There would be a six-story building with 49 affordable homes and 2,500 SQFT of ground-floor retail. Lastly there is a six-story apartment building with 235 homes, all affordable housing plus 820 SQFT of ground-floor commercial space.

This is certainly a huge improvement over what is in the area now (see 2nd image below). However...

...this is a huge lost opportunity to build interesting buildings that tie into the Little Portugal neighborhood and BART station. This does not have to be expensive. Simple changing the color scheme and adding a little mosaic tile will add character and give San Jose a much needed dose of vibrancy.

You can find Portugese-influenced architecture interviewed all around the world. This is Senado Square in Macao (China):

Again, something is better than nothing but there are not many empty parcels left in San Jose. We'll be looking at these buildings for the next 50+ years, so we should make sure the design reflects the direction San Jose is headed as opposed to being another beige box.

Source: SVBJ