Zoll Medical is Moving from Sunnyvale to San Jose

Zoll Medical is one of the market leaders in medical products and software solutions that help emergency respondents save lives. They have about 225 employees right now and occupy 54,000 SQFT in Sunnyvale. They will be investing substantially in San Jose, as they are not just upgrading to 124,500 SQFT in the Northeastern part of the city (2000 Ringwood Drive), but they are purchasing the entire building instead of just leasing it. That means they are likely going to stay in San Jose for quite some time, and will be bringing some new jobs as icing on the cake.

Source: SVBJ

May 2013 Downtown Dimension Highlights

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

• Music in the Park returns July 19th for a single show headlined by Grammy Award-winner Ozomatli. The show will be happening on a Friday at St. James Park, and there will be an admission fee ($10-15 for those over 12 years old)
• Neighbors are asking VTA to drop plans to put a light rail bypass track in the St. James Park area.
• More details on the Centerra high-rise are leaking out. The 21-story 347-unit apartment building across from the San Pedro Square Market will be made out of brick and limestone. The 7,000 SQFT of retail facing the SPSM will be sub-divisible into 1,000 SQFT shops and the space is expected to be occupied by businesses that will complement the market. The builders are hoping to raze structures on the site in the next 60 days and start construction this summer. The building should be ready by 2015.
• Groundworks survey results came back for 2013 and showed positive gains in stakeholder's perceptions of Downtown cleanliness, clean teams, beautification projects, and tree maintenance plans. There were drops in the survey for satisfaction with improved safety, overall image, and overall condition. [Josh: That should change when new safety measures are put in place by Groundwerx].
• Ike's Place is opening a new sandwich shop at the northeast corner of Second and Santa Clara Streets!
• Pauly's Famous Franks N Fries is open at 312 S. Third St., serving over 50 different hot dog combinations.
• Amir Mediterranean Cuisine is now open at the former Morocco's site at 86 N. Market.
• Chandler Pratt & Partners wants to build a mixed-use project at 785 and 795 The Alameda, between the new Whole Foods and Arena Hotel. This would include 98 residential units sitting on top of retail.
• The 7.7 mile section of the Guadalupe River Trail from 880 to Alviso is now fully paved.
• SubZERO will be taking place along SoFA on June 7th.

To read the full newsletter, click here!

Cisco Sells 57 Acres for New Office Complex

Cisco is parting with a 57 acre site that could house quite a large office development. In fact, it is already zoned for 650,000 SQFT of office or R&D space. Trammel Crow Co. is the purchaser and will either build this out as a speculative project or sell off pieces of the land to companies that are ready to build and have specific requirements in mind.

The parcel is right at the border of Alviso and is very near the @First retail and hotel project anchored by Target and Fresh & Easy. Thousands of new apartments are also under construction right now in the general area. Unfortunately this is one part of North First not serviced by Lightrail, so transit here is not going to be great. I think it would be pretty neat if they could run something like a street car from the nearest station to @First, the new office developments, and the Alviso marina area.

Source: SVBJ

Silicon Valley Flagship Office Designs

For many decades Silicon Valley has had to put up with bland, generic office buildings that added zero architectural value to the surrounding areas. It looks like all of that is about to change very soon. At least four  potentially iconic office complexes with eye-catching aesthetics are going to be built in Santa Clara County over the next few years. Samsung is building a pair of 10-story buildings in North San Jose where you are never more than one floor away from an outdoor garden and courtyard. Apple is replacing their Cupertino campus with a single, giant, 2.8M SQFT spaceship-like building for 12,000+ employees. Nvidia is honoring the pixel by building two massive triangle-shaped buildings with open floors measuring 250,000 SQFT in Santa Clara. Lastly, Google is building a new ultra-green Bayshore campus in Mountain View with rooftop gardens.

I think this trend will continue as leading valley tech companies try to one-up each other. We will just have to wait and see which building turns out the best from this initial battle of flagship offices. One thing is for certain... the days of mediocre office building being acceptable in Silicon Valley are numbered.

Samsung (San Jose)

Apple (Cupertino)

Nvidia (Santa Clara)

Google (Mountain View)

49ers Draft Bash in San Jose Attracts 7,500 Visitors

For those that doubted the positive impacts from the 49ers moving South, check out the photo below. A staggering 7,500 people packed the San Pedro Square Market to attend the Draft Bash event late last month.

This is a win-win all around! The San Pedro Square Market vendors were completely busy, more people were exposed to San Pedro and a new side of Downtown, San Jose benefits from increased tax dollars and tourism (yes I used that word in the same sentence as San Jose), and the 49ers get to host their Draft Bash is one of the coolest venues in the Bay Area. You know what else is nuts... the 49ers were the ones that approached the San Pedro Square Market to host the event, not the other way around. Expect to see many more events like this one in both Santa Clara AND San Jose, and fewer 49er events in SF.

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: Silicon Valley Unemployment Drops to 2008 Levels

I think it's pretty obvious from the massive amounts of traffic lately that the economic recovery is becoming quite fierce in Silicon Valley. The San Jose metro saw unemployment drop to 7.3% in March down from 9.1% the previous year. Unemployment in only Santa Clara county is now sitting at 7.1%. If you look at the entire state, the average unemployment is currently 9.4%. There was a long stretch of time where unemployment in the Valley surpassed the state average, so this is huge news.

Unlike the 2000 .COM crash and the 2008 burst of the bubble, there are no severe warning indicators that things are about to explode. Hopefully we have learning from our mistakes and the Silicon Valley job market and economy will continue to consistently improve for many years to come.

Source: SJBJ

The San Jose Blog's 4 Year Anniversary!!!!

It's amazing how time goes by. The very first post on The San Jose Blog was four years ago today. That was over 1,500 posts ago. The original mission was simple, show the world that San Jose is a really cool city and deserves a lot more respect than it has been given in the past, both from outsiders and even residents themselves.

2009 was not a great year. Financial markets were dry, real estate was depressed, unemployment was at a 26-year high, and just about every major project in San Jose was either on-hold or cancelled. If you looked at the very core of San Jose, the Downtown residential high-rises were selling at an abysmal rate, and there was little hope that any of the dozen or so planned towers would move forward. Yet, there was still reason to be optimistic.

San Jose has a unique history. 60 years ago, the economy was mostly agrarian and the population consisted of barely 100,000 residents. To put that in perspective San Francisco had 775,000 and Oakland was up to 365,000 people at that time. Over those 60 years, San Jose experienced unprecedented growth to become 10-fold larger and is now the base of one of the strongest if not the strongest economic engines in the world. That is quite a turn around for a little farming town. The one thing that did not grow as quickly as the population was culture and community pride. Even many San Jose residents felt like it was a second class city. Then something happened...

The masses slowly started caring. A culture based around innovation and constant improvement began emerging. Communities of people excited with every new potential San Jose project popped up. The Usuals opened up shop and started selling I "Heart" SJ shirts, and people actually put them on. San Jose started getting ranked on National Top 10 lists: #1 Top Job Market in the US, #1 Happiest City of Young Professionals, #1 City for Patent Creation, #1 Highest Median Household Income, #1 Top Cleantech City in the US, #1 Healthiest City for Women, #1 Safest Large City in the US, #1 Highest Salaries for [Fill in the Blank], etc., etc. etc. Of all the stats, perhaps the one I was most proud of was getting technically and objectively ranked as a "World Class" City for the first time ever.

Now, we are in an era where our culture is growing, our city is growing, and national recognition is growing. Here is a list of some of the things that either currently exist or are in progress today that seemed unfeasible and out of reach four years ago:

• Four completely full residential high-rises Downtown
• A brand new San Jose Earthquakes Stadium
• The San Pedro Square Market
• The South Bay 49ers
• A Downtown with 250 restaurants
• Premier Retail (i.e. launching here before SF and LA) in Santana Row and Valley Fair
• Little Italy
• Art projects of this calibur
• BART to San Jose
• One billion new miles of new bike lanes (don't quote me on the number)
• MUJI Downtown
• Office HQs that look like this
• Virgin and ANA flights at SJC
• A Shark's Stanley Cup Win (had to throw that one in)

And of course, the big news that I have been harassed about for taking so long to mention...

Thanks to David Cheung for the photo. Also read this and this.

ONE SOUTH MARKET BROKE GROUND!!! San Jose is getting a new tower! There will be some sort of TSJB celebration and I will be buying the first round of beers. More details on this soon.

In parting, I would just like to say a huge thanks to Jen, Jarrod, and Alvin for their contributions to this blog over the years; you guys area amazing! Also a heartfelt thanks to all the readers out there for stopping by, for believing in San Jose, and contributing to its future successes. Our city is a better place because of people that believe making a difference is possible. Even something as small as shopping at a local vendor can have a big impact. Happy Friday!

Extreme Networks Getting a San Jose Headquarters

Extreme Networks is moving their corporate headquarters from Santa Clara to a 57,586 SQFT buildig in North San Jose (145 Rio Robles). The company is a leader in Ethernet technologies and sells a variety of switches and wireless solutions. They have manufactured over 30 million Ethernet ports.

As a side benefit, their move will clear the way for Irvine Company to develop up to 800 housing units and 50,000 SQFT of retail/commercial space at the site of the former Santa Clara headquarters.

Source: SVBJ