St. Patty's Day Post: Irish Innovation Center Opens Downtown!

Last Sunday I was able to get into the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Irish Innovation Center located in Downtown San Jose. These offices will be a launching pad for Irish startup companies that want a presence in Silicon Valley. The event was a huge success with encouraging speeches from Brian Cowen (Prime Minister of Ireland), Chuck Reed, Sam Liccardo, Dr. Craig Barrett (former CEO of Intel), Tom McEnery, and Gordon Ciochon (Former Head of Global Operations at Symantec). We need to continue to keep the San Jose entrepreneurial community active and this is a giant step in the right direction. If we can center that entrepreneurial community in the middle of Downtown San Jose, then that's just icing on the cake.

I'll have some photos from the event for you soon, but for now I can offer you the shortest Sam Liccardo interview of all time courtesy of David Manzo:

San Jose Opens/Closes the Nasdaq Today

To celebrate 20 years of the Nasdaq having a presence in Silicon Valley, the opening and closing ceremonies were done from the City Hall rotunda today. With 203 out of the 513 companies listed on the Nasdaq calling Silicon Valley home, maybe the Nasdaq should consider a more permanent move, don't you think?

JoAnn Freda from San Jose Day-by-Day happened to make it to the opening ceremony and has a great blog post about it--her 100th blog post in fact! She even took some photos at the event like the one below. Read her post here!

San Pedro Square Market Letters of Intent!

Are you guys ready for an update regarding my favorite upcoming project in Downtown San Jose? While I can't provide any names besides Barefoot Coffee and Veggielution, I can tell you what types of vendors have signed Letters of Intent for the San Pedro Square Market!

• Barber Shop
• Bike Rentals
• I can give you a little more info about this one. These are supposed to be electronic bikes that you can rent and ride all around downtown (the electronic assist will work for ~20 miles). When you're done, they plug them in and recharge the battery for the next rider.
• Cards
• Chocolate (unconfirmed)
• Concierge
• Falafels
• Flowers (unconfirmed)
• Frozen Custard (supposed to be amazing)
• Fruit Smoothies
• Gorditas
• Guatemalan Imports
• Gyros (unconfirmed)
• Italian Food
• Latino Kitchen Products
• Pho
• Produce
• Raviolis
• Sausages (unconfirmed)
• Shirts and Caps
• Spring Rolls
• Tamales and Enchiladas
• Toffee
• Wine Bar

Many more Letters of Intent are pending and hopefully we can get actual names soon! I have more information about ideas that are being thrown that will create some synergy between the vendors, but I'll save that for another post later this week. If you have any thoughts on what other types of vendors you would like to see at the Market, please post in the comments!

San Jose 2030

I have to tell you guys about an amazing new endeavor that videographer David Manzo has embarked on. His plan is to fully document Downtown's transformation over the next 20 years in a project called San Jose 2030! Over the next several months, he will be videotaping and photographing key areas throughout downtown including the San Pedro Square Market Site, Saint James Park, and other places of historic significance. As major changes occur, he will go back and re-record those areas in stunning high definition. Not only will this capture significant eras in San Jose's history, but it will provide a time lapse of how Downtown will grow and achieve new heights over the next 2 decades!

To start tracking Dave's progress, access the San Jose 2030 Facebook page here! A website is also coming soon.

130 New Homes Coming to Santana Row

Finally a major housing project is moving forward in San Jose! Barry Swenson has been contracted to build 130 new apartments (flats and townhomes) in the 1.5 acre parking lot behind Santana Row's Borders Bookstore. The project will be at least 5 floors, 4 stories of residential on top of a parking garage which will hopefully accommodate more than just the residents. The new units will likely by rented out first and then sold as condos. Federal Realty is expected to foot a bill of around $30 million, or just under a quarter million per unit. If it sounds cheap per unit, don't forget to factor in the value of the land these units are sitting on top of.

SJC Hypothetical Question

I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit and throw out a hypothetical question posed by one of our readers, Anthony Dominguez. What would happen if we were to shut down SJC and relocate operations to SFO and OAK? Before you light your torches, hear me out (and bear in mind I'm a big fan of SJC). With high speed rail, the trip from Diridon Station to SFO is going to be a ridiculously low 13 minutes. That's less time than it takes to park in SJC on a busy day. So what would we gain in exchange for losing one of the city's prime assets?

• No building height restrictions in Downtown San Jose or other urban areas around the airport.
• Faster approval process for high-rise development.
• 1,000 acres of prime, develop-able land in the center of Silicon Valley with immediate access to 3 freeways.
• Substantially less noise for over 100,000 people that live in close proximity to the airport.
• None of the liabilities that come along with managing an airport, especially one with declining passenger volume.

I'm not saying that this is something I support, again just playing devil's advocate ;). Below are some mock-ups that Anthony put together of what a consolidated airport at SFO could look like. If you have an opinion on this topic, as always please post in the comments!

SAN JOSE / 21 is Back!

One of my favorite San Jose blogs is finally back! DLO has a great post on a Downtown Campbell article that showed up in the Merc last month.

Give it a read over here.

Conan is Coming to San Jose!

That's right, Conan O'Brien is coming to the San Jose State Event Center on May 5th! I'm not sure if booking a Cinco de Mayo show in Downtown San Jose was intentional or not, but my recommendation to you if you were able to snag tickets... arrive early and avoid diving down Santa Clara Street at all costs.

If you don't mind going solo, you may still be able to buy tickets here. Otherwise, there's always Ebay :/.