EPIC NEWS: KT Properties Planning Two New Towers in San Pedro Area!!!

Downtown fans are about to have even more to look forward to! Nathan Donato-Weinstein from the Silicon Valley Business Journal broke a story last week that made my month. KT Properties--the developer behind Axis and One South Market--has acquired a huge 1.7-acre block of land between The San Pedro Square Market and City Heights. They are planning to build two high-rise residential towers with more than 600 units!

KT properties has not released any sort of architectural drawing yet, but based on how Axis and the final design of One South turned out... I have high hopes that the buildings will look impressive. They did mention that they could have done one giant building but opted to go with two to add more texture to the skyline. Thankfully the buildings will not be identical like many towers Downtown, but they will have similarities. Also both towers will be towards the north of the lot to minimize visual impact around the historic Fallon House.

There will also be a "significant" retail component extending along San Pedro Street! This is yet another organic expansion (in addition to Centerra) of the Downtown retail and entertainment epicenter started by the San Pedro Square Market.

The plans should be submitted to City Hall in the next few weeks and they are hoping to get all approvals by the first quarter of 2014. That will mean a groundbreaking could happen as soon as mid-2014, but we'll have to wait and see. Great way to start the week!

Source: SVBJ

America's Happiest Person is a 23-Year-Old, Coffee-Drinking Republican in San Jose

Okay, this is a fun article. It looks at various stats to determine who would be the happiest person in the US. After discovering that 23-year-olds are the happiest people, the writer went on to discover that the happiest 23-year-olds live in San Jose. The article mentions that part of this is likely due to the fact that that professionals in San Jose are genuinely nice, happy people who are kind to their coworkers. It's an interesting read, so check out the full article at the source link below.

Source: Yahoo News

Saturday Stats: San Jose Ranks as One of the Most "Saintly" Cities

Movato has created a list of the most "Saintly" cities in the US by looking at the statistics related to the 7 Deadly Sins. Specifically they looked at the following:

• Strip clubs per capita (Lust)
• Cosmetic surgeons per capita (Pride)
• Violent crime per year per 1,000 residents (Wrath)
• Theft per year per 1,000 residents (Envy)
• Percentage of disposable income given to charity each year (Greed)
• Percentage of obese residents (Gluttony)
• Percentage of physically inactive residents (Sloth)

After crunching the numbers, San Jose came in as the 9th most "Saintly." SF did not even rank in the top 50 and surprisingly NYC came in 1st (surprising to me at least). To check out the full article which goes deep into the logic of the metrics, click here. You can also find the lists below:

List of Most Saintly Cities:
1. New York, NY
2. Gilbert, AZ
3. Fremont, CA
4. Glendale, CA
5. Chula Vista, CA
6. Colorado Springs, CO
7. Chandler, AZ
8. Long Beach, CA
9. San Jose, CA
10. Irvine, CA

Click to enlarge the full list below:



Source: Movoto

Walmart is Replacing Circuit City on Stevens Creek

The former Circuit City at 4080 Stevens Creek in San Jose is about to get a radical makeover. Walmart is planning to turn it into a 45,000 SQFT Neighborhood Market (not a full-blown Walmart). The store will offer groceries, some home items, prepared food, a deli, and a pharmacy. However, this store is not without controversy. Below is a letter sent in from one of our readers:

"Hello Josh,
I wanted to alert you and others to what's been going on with plans for a Walmart Neighborhood Market to take over an old Circuit City at 4080 Stevens Creek Boulevard and an upcoming Planning Commission hearing on the matter Wednesday, August 14th. Here is a link to a recent story in the Silicon Valley Business Journal about the proposed Market. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/08/06/walmart-grocery-store-confirmed-for.html
My family and several of my neighbors are very concerned about Walmart moving into the neighborhood and are just as troubled by the way the City of San Jose has essentially steamrolled this project over the public.
We have submitted a petition with over 100 signatures to the City asking them to deny Walmart their request for a permit for off-site alcohol sales at the proposed site on Stevens Creek Boulevard as we have been told that the City has little discretion over anything else. Right now, there are approximately 50 liquor licenses within a 2 mile radius of the proposed site; Walmart's would be number 51! We also have a fair amount of crime in the area and are concerned about attracting more crime to the area and jeopardizing public safety with off-site sales of alcohol until 12am.
Planning staff for the City has been anything but helpful with requests for information. Most recently, the City “accidentally”sent out the public notice for the upcoming Planning Commission and City Council hearings regarding Walmart’s permit requests with the wrong day of the week next to the City Council hearing date on the notice. When we asked planning staff to correct the mistake and resend out the notice so that residents aren’t confused and try to attend the City Council meeting on Wednesday instead of the correct day, Tuesday, August 20th, staff said that because the date was right, they did not have to resend it. When pressed further on it, they agreed only to resend it to people who attended and commented at the initial community meeting that they had quickly noticed about a month ago. Finally, when being told that what they were doing was not legal, staff recanted and said that they would resend a revised Notice out to everyone in a 1,000 foot radius after all.
Staff also recently stated that the public request for a traffic study analysis was determined unnecessary because the City determined that the former use of a Circuit City was similar to the proposed traffic that a major grocery store like the proposed Walmart Neighborhood Market would generate. Comparing traffic generated from a failed store selling electronics and desktop computers is a far cry from traffic that will be generated by a major grocery store at the same site, yet the City will not conduct a proper traffic analysis.
Overall, we just want to get the word out about this project and the upcoming public hearings as the City seems to have already made up their mind about giving Walmart the off-site alcohol sales permit regardless of what the residents who will have to live with the impacts have to think. We appreciate anything you can do to bring light to this project and on what the City is doing. Thank you for your time and consideration."

Source: SVBJ, Anonymous

August 2013 Downtown Dimension Highlights

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

• The SJ Storefronts Initiative will help small businesses lease vacant spaces up to 20,000 SQFT by providing as much as a $16k grant (in the form of reduced or eliminated building and occupancy permits). Note this is targeted directly at retail, restaurants and service-oriented businesses do not qualify.
• Bike sharing goes live this month with a fleet of 200 bicycles across 20 different stations located Downtown (and one in Japantown).
• SP2 is now open in the San Pedro Square area.
• Konjoe Burger Bar is now open at the San Pedro Square Market [Josh: and it is awesome, Bray Butcher Shop is also open].
• The Fairmont is doing a $5M renovation, including mirror TVs in the bathrooms, new beds, and decor.
• The Gold Club bikini bar had its grand opening Aug 8-10th.
• BJ's is replacing Chevy's at the San Jose MarketCenter on Coleman.
• Cisco has decided to invest $50,000 each year in ZER01.
• The Hackworth IMAX Dome Theater at The Tech is one of the top 10 attended IMAX's in the US.

To read the full newsletter, click here!

El Camino Real BRT Project Update

There are some updates regarding the Bus Rapid Transit Corridor that is currently being planned for El Camino. Instead of just trying to push through the plan to build a dedicated BRT lane through most of El Camino between San Jose and Palo Alto, VTA is now considering and doing environmental impact reports for seven different scenarios. These include from the original plan utilizing a dedicated lane, making everything mixed flow between buses and normal traffic, and several options in between.

What do you guys think? Does it make sense to improve public transit by making an El Camino Bus-only lane, or is the cost of increased car-traffic too high?

Source: VTA Newsletter

Sam: Leveraging Innovation to Improve City Hall

The text below is taken from Sam Liccardo's newsletter, and I couldn't agree with him more on our need to cut red tape and leverage technology and crowd-sourcing to improve current city processes. In order to help San Jose thrive (all of San Jose) we need to fix the existing permitting issues and increase the level of transparency. I'm really glad to see Sam highlight these issues and propose a strategy to address them--hopefully this turns into action! The full, unedited article is below:

Sam’s Corner: Leveraging Innovation to Improve City Hall 

San José is one city, but two worlds.  While our innovative local tech companies--from PayPal to Polycom to Pinger-- continue to hire at a pace at which they cannot find enough qualified workers, San José continues to suffers from an unemployment rate hovering around 7%.   Many more of our neighbors work part-time or multiple jobs at far less pay than they earned before the Great Recession.

Small businesses increasingly have become the employers of many San José residents—including self-employed entrepreneurs-- left behind in the tech boom.  One way to address the yawning opportunity gap would focus our municipal energies on lightening the burdens of those small businesses.   Hence, my efforts to launch StartUp San José several months ago – to fill empty storefronts by leveraging the entrepreneurial energy of our community with fee waivers, wi-fi access, and marketing assistance.

Yet as we all know, City Hall can get in the way.   The permitting process serves as a frequent source of frustration; red tape, uncertainty, conflicting directives, and delays drive small business owners batty.  Although processes have improved in recent months, stories still echo of store owners who anxiously await a city permit that will entitle them to start operating or employing workers.  By the time they’re finally granted the permit to operate, they’ve burned through most of their marketing budget by paying a lease for nine months without any revenue.

How do we “fix” this?  Technological innovation can help, particularly by improving the transparency and accountability of City Hall.   That’s why I recently proposed an initiative with Councilmember Johnny Khamis to take two important steps toward a solution:  employing tracking software, and launching what’s known as an “open data” platform.  

First, the tracking software:  currently, you can order a FedEx package from Timbuktu, and you can track it’s progress each mile with to a simple website, but if you submit an application for a city permit, it may disappear into a bureaucratic abyss.   Customers cannot know who to call, how to get it expedited, or the reason for the delay.   Relatively simple software, however, can identify the desk on which every application rests in City Hall, and for how long.   It can also pinpoint the source of any delay, such as an incomplete application, staff deliberation, or inaction due to a lengthy queue at intake.    By looking at the paths of thousands of such applications, and aggregating that data, we can isolate “choke points” where management might improve employee training, or implement streamlining measures, like automation.   Managers can also identify effective employees, and reward them for their performance.   Simply, City Hall becomes more accountable.

Next, we can improve the process by releasing all of the data that we’ve collected to the public.  How?  Launching City Hall’s first “open data” platform, in which the city allows the public to download of all of the data from a website—with the names and personal information appropriately redacted—that the city collects.   Open data platforms have enabled innovative software developers in other cities to create desktop software and smartphone applications to do everything from warning diners of restaurants with frequent health code violations, to informing transit riders of the arrival time of the next bus.   In this case, by hosting a “hack-a-thon” for local apps developers, we can unleash their innovative skills to provide smartphone apps that will help customers with “real-time” information, via a website or automated text, to inform them about the permit’s status, who to call if it appears “stuck,” and which supervisor to appeal to.  The app could to inform customers of the average duration for the approval process of each permit type, so they can budget accordingly.    Software developers might also find innovative ways to streamline processes, such as by using web-based tools that eliminate a trip to City Hall.

San José has no shortage of civic-minded software developers—including many bright college students -- who want to make our city a better place, and who can “beta-test” a potentially successful smartphone app, using San José as their laboratory.  By unleashing their creativity, we can improve the ways that our city service its residents, and boost our local economy.

Sincerely,

Sam Liccardo

SP2 @ San Pedro Square

If you haven't been to the San Pedro Square Market over the past 4 or 5 weeks, then you are missing out. The area has been on fire lately, easily matching or exceeding the density of people at Santana Row. Three new eateries opened up: Konjoe (Asain-American fusion burgers), Bray Butcher Block (meat sandwiches and comfort food), and SP2... The Market's new flagship anchor restaurant.

SP2 is owned by two serial restaurateurs from SF that are branching out to the South Bay. One of them has even purchased a house in San Jose plans to really be a part of the San Jose community. They are basically taking the best of the SF restaurant scene and bringing it to the heart of Downtown San Jose.

The atmosphere is chic, modern, and unpretentious. There is a massive communal table and mcuh of the furniture was custom-made specifically for the restaurant. Total square-footage is epic, about a third the size of the entire San Pedro Square Market. The indoor portion is 6,000 SQFT while the patio clocks in at 3,500 SQFT (and it partially connects to the Market courtyard).

The bistro-style menu offers 100% organic and locally sourced food. As for the bar, they make everything for the cocktails, including all of the juices and even the bitters. The quality and attention to detail should be up there with Singelbarrel. Based on the Yelp reviews so far, they are killing it across the board with the menu, drinks, and the ambiance.

SP2 is exactly the type of place Downtown needs. It's will help accelerate what is already happening, turning Downtown into a true destination that attracts people from across Silicon Valley, much like what Santana Row has already accomplished. If the standing-room only crowd at the Market this past weekend was any indication, this is likely going to happen by the end of the year.

Also, the owners have already stated that if SP2 is a success, they will open more restaurants in Downtown San Jose. Looking at the response so far, I think this is a very likely scenario.

Source: HMG, SVBJ