Bass Pro Shops is Building a GARGANTUAN Store in South San Jose

Bass Pro Shops is an outdoor retailer known for building huge destination stores. How huge? The San Jose store will be 145,000 SQFT, which is larger than your typical Costco. This store has an incredibly loyal and devoted following that drive an average of more than 50 miles to get to their closest store and stay an average of 2.5 hours per visit. Each store gets about 2 million visitors per year. This will be the first Bass Pro Shops in the Bay Area, and there are only two other stores in all of California.

The San Jose store will carry all sorts of camping, hunting, fishing, boating, and general outdoor gear. If none of that sounds appealing to you, I'm sure just walking around will be entertaining in and of itself. In fact, this store will come complete with a 12-lane "underwater" bowling alley and a seafood restaurant.

Bass Pro Shops will be located in Almaden Ranch at the corner of Almaden Expressway and Highway 85 and construction should be complete in 2015. Over 250-300 permanent jobs will be created when the store opens, not including seasonal employees.

Source: The Merc, SVBJ

Beavers Find the Way Back to San Jose

Well, I can honestly say that I had no idea beavers ever existed in the Bay Area. For the first time in 150 years, beavers have apparently returned to the Guadalupe River and made a home for themselves within the Downtown San Jose area. Even the beavers see the value in moving Downtown! Check out the video below and the source link for all the info.

Thanks Dan for the tip!

Source: Bay Nature

Saturday Stats: San Jose Leads the Nation in Tech Jobs per Capita

A staggering 33% of all jobs in the San Jose metro are related to Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (also known as STEM jobs). This is higher than any other region in the US. The Washington DC area came in second place with 27%. SF and New York did not even make the top 10 list.

The report also found that areas with high concentrations of STEM jobs are likely to see higher wages, better employment rates, and faster growth. To see the Top 10 list, just click the image below.

Source: SVBJ, Brookings Institute

Click to Enlarge!

The Blackbird Tavern Opens Today!

The official opening date of the Blackbird Tavern has arrived. Perched at the corner of 200 South 1st Street across from MUJI and the Fairmont Hotel, this is one of the most highly anticipated restaurants coming Downtown this year. Brought to you by the same guys as the Naglee Park Garage, the food is likely going to please. Top it off with an impressive bar and live music, and folks I think we're going to have a real hit here. Go check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

Downtown San Jose Bitter Beer Crawl Tonight

In a sign of the burgeoning better beer scene in downtown San Jose, there’s a bar hop taking place tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Market Beer Co. inside San Pedro Square Market.

With stops at O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub, The Brit, and Good Karma Vegan Café, this beer crawl is organized to showcase some of the downtown spots serving good beer as well as to help your favorite, local beer bar participate in this year’s Stone Bitter Beer challenge. More information can be found here.

Market Beer Company - first stop on the Bitter Beer Crawl in downtown San Jose. Credits: Andy Lee

San Jose Earthquakes' Stadium is Making Progress

With a $1.4 billion stadium rising in Santa Clara, it is easy to forget about the Earthquakes' new stadium. The total cost of this project is going to be $60 million, which is almost a rounding error compared to what the 49ers are spending (they recently announced an extra $75 million on tech upgrades alone). However, having a soccer-specific stadium for the Earthquakes will energize both the team and fans and help take the world's favorite sport to the next level in the Bay Area. Now that ground has been broken and construction is getting into full swing, I think you'll be seeing the Quakes' stadium a lot more in the news. The final product will seat 18,000 people and be home to the largest outdoor bar in North America. Frankly, I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

Source: The Merc

Earthlink is Returning to San Jose!

Talk about a blast from the past. Earthlink was one of the key players in the early days of the internet, back when dial-up was the norm and anything above 56k was considered "high-speed." Back then they competed with companies like AOL and Compuserve. Earthlink used to have a presence in Downtown San Jose, and one of the high-rises even donned the company insignia for several years. After the bubble burst, they ended up consolidating offices.

Now Earthlink is coming back to San Jose, and they are doing so in style. The company is planning to open a huge new data center for its cloud-hosting platform along with a sales office. To top it off they are even acquiring a Sunnyvale-based company called CenterBeam. They are making a big investment in Silicon Valley, so it looks like they are planning to stick around for quite a while this time.

Source: SVBJ

Discover San Jose Retail Store Opens Today!

If this isn't a sign of the times I don't know what is. Yet another retail store is opening up Downtown, and this one is all about San Jose pride! The Discover San Jose store will be located at 150 South 1st Street across from the Fairmont Plaza and will carry souvenirs, historic artifacts, San Jose art, and more. They picked a really good central location and I'm sure store will do wonders in getting the San Jose brand out there more.

The ribbon cutting ceremony and grand opening are both happening this afternoon and will feature free food, drinks, and gifts. For more information click here!