VTA's Holly Trolley

The free Holly Trolly is back! You can ride a historic Trolley throughout Downtown San Jose between Diridon and Civic Center. The trains run from 2:30 PM to 10 PM on weekends and 6 PM to 10 PM on Fridays. The trolly will be operational until December 29th (I really wish this was a year-round sort of thing, it's a great idea)!

New Alchemy Museum Coming to San Jose in 2015!

One of my Wednesday Wishlists ages ago was to see more museums in San Jose. They contribute to tourism, the economy, and provide new educational opportunities for local residents. In 2013 not one, but two major museums were announced. The first was the Italian Heritage Museum in the burgeoning Little Italy neighborhood Downtown. The second is going to be the largest Alchemy Museum in the world!

The RoseCroix University building next to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum will be converted to a full-blown Alchemy Museum in 2015. Since alchemy is thought to have originated in ancient Egypt, this seems like an ideal location.

The museum will have seven different rooms with exhibits, one for each of the seven phases of alchemical transformation:

• Calcination
• Dissolution
• Separation
• Conjunction
• Fermentation [Josh: my favorite]
• Distillation
• Coagulation

To top it off, there will be interactive exhibits, lectures, a working alchemy lab, and an auditorium for events. Apparently this will be the only facility of its kind in the US.

You will be able to get a sneak preview of this new project at the Egyptian Museum next summer. The Rosicrucians are planning a special alchemy exhibit to promote the new museum, which is again due out in 2015.

Source: MetroActive

The Ohlone Project in Midtown is Put on Hold

Developer Green Republic--which is a combination of Barry Swenson Builder and Republic Urban Properties--has withdrawn plans for a 3-tower high-rise project in the Midtown area of San Jose (between Downtown and Santana Row). The point of contention seems to be the density and height of the project and a new park the developer would be required to build to service the neighborhood.

It doesn't seem that Green Republic could get this project financed as a hi-rise project, and instead would like to lower the density of the first phase and make it a mid-rise. The city reluctantly agreed and also conceded on retail and financing requirements, but would not budge on the requirement to build a four-acre park. That seems to be what is blocking the scaled down version of this project from moving forward.

This is still some hope. The developer and city both seem to want this project to happen, and this is more of a negotiation on terms than anything else.

Source: SVBJ

The San Jose Blog Hits 1 Million Page Views!

Over the weekend The San Jose Blog hit a major milestone. The homepage has now officially been viewed over 1,000,000 times! It took four and a half years to get to this point, but it looks like the next million views will happen by the end of 2014. I really want to thank of all of our readers. Without you guys this blog would have died long ago, along with the majority of San Jose blogs with similar goals that have come and gone over the years. I would also like to thank the other contributors to the blog: Jen, Jarrod, and Andy for their continued support.

Just like any other major milestone in life, it is a good time to look ahead at the future. One of my key hopes for this blog was always to have it contribute more to the community, especially Downtown San Jose. So I would like to work towards an annual event for readers and supporters, hosted at a new, hip Downtown eatery with free beer and snacks. I love how Content Magazine throws parties for their supporters, and would like to do the same thing. A longer term goal is contributing to major projects (Halloween in the Park and local art projects comes to mind).

In order to fund these plans, I'm planning to put up a single, unobtrusive ad block over on the right hand panel by the end of the year. It will not affect the posts in any way, either visually or from a content perspective. If you guys hate it, just let me know (josh@thesanjoseblog.com). If it doesn't work or annoys people, I have no problem rolling back the change.

Thank you again for all of the support, and here's to the future!

San Jose History Program #1 Video - San Jose Once Erected the World's Largest Mailbox?

Here is a neat, one-minute history lesson on San Jose from our friends at WMS:


San Jose History Pgm #01 from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Quick Samsung Campus Pic

Downtown isn't the only place in San Jose where multiple cranes are going up. Below is a pic that Jaime Pelayo sent in last week of the Samsung Headquarters in North San Jose. It looks like the flagship campus is now growing above ground. Looking forward to seeing this project at full height!

Saturday Stats: Santa Clara County Leading Bay Area Commercial Boom

There are a lot of cranes in the air and buzz about the office market in San Francisco, but the reality is that Santa Clara County is leading the Bay Area in commercial real estate construction with $2.1 billion worth of activity. While this beats San Francisco by 10%, keep in mind it is much cheaper to build offices in the South Bay than up North, so the variance by square footage is likely much greater. Also the $1.3 billion 49ers stadium is not factored into this figure. We'll also see how things go in 2014 and 2015 when developers start hitting the hard cap the city of San Francisco has set on new office construction.

In total, the entire Bay Area will top the $6 billion new commercial construction record set way back in the year 2000. It seems things are recovering nicely in our local economy.

2013 Commercial Construction Activity

Santa Clara County: $2.1 billion
San Francisco County: $1.9 billion
San Mateo County: $765 million
Alameda + Contra Costa Counties: $681 million

Source: SocketSite

Samsung's New US Headquarters in San Jose

Jimmy Fallon @ Henry's Hi-Life BBQ

A couple days ago we had a celebrity visitor at Henry's Hi-Life. Checkout Jimmy's Facebook page for to read people's comments. Thanks Gary for sending this in.