August 2014 Downtown Dimension Highlights

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

• Levi's Stadium is now open for business and will bring tons of world-class events to the region like the Super Bowl, WrestleMania, and international Soccer Matches in addition to the regular 49ers games. Downtown San Jose will be a huge benefactor offering hotels, restaurants, bars, and entertainment to Levi's Stadium visitors before and after games. Downtown San Jose has 7 Light Rail Station, one Heavy Rail Station, and several shuttle buses that can take people directly to the stadium.
• The Knight Foundation is donating $150,000 to fund Downtown Association projects focused on two initiatives:
• The Public Space Activation Project will distribute five micro-grants to local events producers.
• The Street Life Project will focus on initiating the Downtown Street Life Plan which includes modular stages, street furniture, shade structures, pocket gardens, lighting, and Downtown wayfinding.
• This month TPG Hospitality plans to break ground on a 210-room AC Hotels by Marriott on Santa Clara and Highway 87.
• Park View Towers is moving forward with an 18-story building with 155 units and a 12-floor building with 64 units fronting St. James Park. There would be 15,000 SQFT of restaurant and retail space on the ground floor and the Church of Christ Scientist building would be used for offices.
• The Post and San Pedro Tower is also moving forward with a 21-story, 182-unit mixed-use project with 8,000 SQFT of ground-floor retail.
• SJSU is starting construction on a 10-story, 850-bed student housing project on the corner of Ninth and Paseo de San Carlos.
• Chacho's is doubling their seating inside by expanding into the former Love's Cupcakes spot.
• VCs have invested $30 million each into two Downtown tech companies: Intacct (which is doubling their presence Downtown) and Malewarebytes.
• The SoFA Market is expected to open this month (!) with three tenants: the Falafel Bar, Veros Coffee, and The Fountainhead (architecture-themed bar).
• Pete Escovedo and his Latin Jazz Orchestra are headlining Music in Park on Aug 21st.
• The next HER City event will be Aug 27 at the Tech Shop.

To read the full newsletter, click here!

Content Magazine Pick Up Party Today @ Paper Plane!

Content Magazine is having another one of their pick-up parties, and this time it is at one of my favorite new restaurant/bars Downtown--Paper Plane. If you are a subscriber, you get one free drink (and the drinks here are fantastic). Non-subscribers can stop by and purchase the latest copy for only $5 (half-price). Either way, this is well worth checking out!

Pick Up Party--Tuesday,
August 19th 6:00-8:00pm

Come celebrate our new issue, 6.3 "Stage," with the Content Magazine community at one of San Jose's newest spots, Paper Plane.

72 S. First Street
San Jose, CA 95113

Subscribers, Contributors and People Featured will get one free drink and a copy of the latest issue. Non-subscribers can purchase the latest copy for $5 (50% off) at the Pick Up Party.  

Stop on by. Meet new people. Learn new reasons to love your city.
RSVP (or email us)

San Pedro Square Market Planning Expansion!

Since launching in October 2011, the San Pedro Square Market has become a pivotal success that is changing perceptions of Downtown San Jose and serving as a catalyst for development. It is one of the biggest wins Downtown has ever had. Now, the SPSM is planning their first major expansion and has already acquired a 13,045 SQFT parcel across the street for this purpose.

Today, this lot consists of a small house being used as an office for History San Jose and a surface parking lot. Eventually this will likely become a two-story building with retail on the ground floor residential or office on the top floor. The retail piece could easily be 40% of the square footage the Market has today and either support multiple vendors or larger, more traditional restaurants and shops. The icing on the cake is that they will incorporate some sort of public space next to the Fallen House, much like they did with the Peralta Adobe in the middle of the Market.

My personal wishlist item for the expansion would be an underground Speakeasy bar similar to Singlebarrel. How cool would that be?

Other retail will be coming as well. Centerra will have 8,000 SQFT on the ground floor of its tower right across the street from the Market and KT Properties is going to build two high-rise towers with the same amount of retail as exists today at the Market. This means within 4-5 years we may have triple the amount of restaurants and shops we have today in the San Pedro Square Market area. I can't wait to see how this shapes up!

Source: SVBJ

East San Jose Soccer Team Ranks 3rd in the Country

A soccer team backed by the Portuguese Athletic Club called "Los Tigres" has brought back a bronze medal in the US Youth Soccer National Championship Finals. Out of over 10,000 teams around the country, they came in third. Check out the full article over here.

Source: I Heart San Jose, The Merc

Saturday Stats: San Jose is One of "America's Coolest Cities"

Forbes recently compiled a list of America's Coolest Cities. They started with the 60 largest Metros in the US and then ranked them on six factors (equal weight):

• Arts, culture, and entertainment amenities
• Recreational amenities
• Diversity
• Foodie culture
• Population aged 20-34
• Population growth

San Jose ranked #16 on their list, tied with Los Angeles (I'll take it). SF ranked #5 and New York hit #11. Washington DC took the #1 spot. To see the full list click here.

Sources: Cardinal2007 from Skyscrapercity, Forbes

Techmanity 2014 Coming to Downtown San Jose

Being billed as Silicon Valley's first official technology conference, Techmanity is coming to Downtown San Jose on October 1st and 2nd. The event will be curated by Fast Company and has a nice list of speakers including CEOs, entrepreneurs, and VCs. Also, what's a tech conference without some fun? In addition to multiple networking opportunities Techmanity will also host several musical events with bands like Weezer, the Kongos, and Young Rising Sons. You can get all of the details in the press release below or visiting the Techmanity website over here.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Techmanity 2014, Silicon Valley’s first official technology conference, today announced its lineup and open registration for its inaugural event, taking place in San Jose October 1-2. Headline speakers include Houzz founder and CEO, Adi Tatarko; Samsung Electronics president, Young Sohn; and a keynote by actor/musician turned tech entrepreneur, Jared Leto.

“Techmanity summons the best minds of our generation—the firestarters, malcontents, trailblazers and dreamers to rethink and re-imagine the future of work, play and life in a networked age”

The two day event, curated by Fast Company, will feature rapid-fire presentations from dozens of “radical entrepreneurs and vanguard geeks” representing the most disruptive and compelling ideas from Silicon Valley. After-hours entertainment and networking is being produced by Live Nation, and includes national music acts such as Grammy-award winner Weezer, who will be debuting its new album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Top-level sponsors include Samsung Electronics, Silicon Valley Bank and Adobe.

Designed as a next-generation conference experience and networking festival, Techmanity is a gathering of the Silicon Valley tribes celebrating the region’s future-bending companies, entrepreneurs, inventors and ideas. Techmanity will feature a riveting mix of the Valley’s movers and shakers – people who are cultivating new business models and disrupting the status quo – alongside passionate social entrepreneurs leveraging new innovations to improve the lives of those who might otherwise be left behind by technological progress.

“Techmanity summons the best minds of our generation—the firestarters, malcontents, trailblazers and dreamers to rethink and re-imagine the future of work, play and life in a networked age,” said Tom Hayes, the tech executive who founded Techmanity. “Techmanity is about doing business in a whole new way in a profoundly connected global economy—about new ideas to improve human creativity, productivity and quality of life for a planet made much smaller by technology.”

In addition to Leto, Techmanity will provide an opportunity for two days of high-energy networking, socializing and idea-sharing with disruptive industry leading executives including:

• Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice, co-founders, SoulCycle
• Leah Busque, founder and CEO, TaskRabbit
• James Freeman, founder and CEO, Blue Bottle Coffee
• Troy Carter, music industry pioneer and tech investor, Atom Factory
• Catherine Hoke, founder & CEO, Defy Ventures
• Ido Leffler, co-founder, Yes To brands; founder, Yoobi
• Marissa Sackler, founder, BeeSpace

Topics on the agenda include the Internet of Us, the future of post-job work, building a cult brand in a media-saturated world and the power of second chances, among many others. In addition to these conference sessions, Techmanity will also celebrate the winners of its Techmanitarian Awards, and showcase the hottest, most disruptive startups in its Startlandia exhibit.

In the evening, attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy networking events featuring performances by Weezer, Thievery Corporation,Kongos, Crown and the Mob, Young Rising Sons and more acts to be announced.

To register for Techmanity 2014, please visit www.techmanity.com/registration. Media registration can be found here:www.techmanity.com/media.

Tweet this: .@Techmanity opens registration and reveals speakers for first annual conference http://bit.ly/1ymnNKD

Follow Techmanity 2014 on Twitter
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Like Techmanity 2014 on Facebook

About Techmanity
Techmanity is Silicon Valley’s first annual technology and lifestyle event celebrating the companies and people whose products and services are revolutionizing our world.

For two days in October 2014, Techmanity will command center stage on the tech world with mind-blowing conversations with the brightest people in the industry, dozens of exciting networking events hosted by leading Silicon Valley companies and an incredible line-up of special programs showcasing the best new apps, business models and startup ideas on the planet.

Super Jardineros Greenhouse Project

Valley Verde is a small non-profit in San Jose that wants to improve access to homegrown organic vegetables while assisting low-income families. They started an Indiegogo project that will be used to fund supplies such as greenhouses that would be placed at the homes of "Super Jardineros." Valley Verde will train these gardeners on how to grow varieties of ethnic seedlings (finger eggplant, tomatillos, chayote, etc.). They will then sell these seedlings either back to Valley Verde or to local farmer's markets.

The end result should be easier (and theoretically less expensive) access to locally grown organic vegetables, all the while helping low income families with both a sustainable income stream and entrepreneurial skills.

Valley Verde is aiming to raise $10,000 which will be enough to provide 10 families with green houses, seeds, seedlings, trays, pots, domes, heating mats, and training. It's a great cause and you can learn more by watching the video below and visiting the Super Jardineros Greenhouse Project page.

Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak & Pub Now Open @ Levi's Stadium

This week marks the official opening of Michael Mina's second restaurant in Silicon Valley (Arcadia in the ground floor of the Downtown San Jose Marriott was the first). Bourbon Steak & Pub combines both a high-end steakhouse and a more relaxed Pub environment. The Pub will have 50 craft beers, farm-to-table cuisine, and 70 HDTVs for watching sporting events. On the other hand Bourbon Steak will offer a premium dining environment with Certified Prime Angus steaks, Japanese Wagyu, and Dry-Aged Duck. The restaurant will be open all year round and will have special events during game days.

For more information, scroll down for the full press release. You can make reservations over here.

Chef Michael Mina teams with the san Francisco 49ers to Bring Unique

dual-restaurant dining concept to Levi’s Stadium

Bourbon Steak & Pub to Welcome Bay Area Patrons Daily, Year-Round

for Lunch, Dinner and Viewing Parties

(SANTA CLARA, CA) – Bay Area culinary great Chef Michael Mina has unveiled Bourbon Steak & Pub at Levi’s Stadium^®, a new concept in stadium dining. Bringing a high-end steakhouse and relaxed pub together under one roof, Bourbon Steak & Pub offers a range of dining experiences to suit the needs of sports fans, foodies, concert goers and local residents alike – seven days a week, all year long. Bourbon Steak & Pub is now accepting reservations beginning Aug. 11. 

Bourbon Pub will be the premier lunch, dinner and gameday destination offering the perfect space to kick back and cheer on your favorite teams while enjoying a variety of 50 craft beers and a vast menu filled with reinvented bar bites. Bourbon Pub will serve fresh, farm-to-table cuisine that reflects the spirit of a modern pub at affordable price points. With a focus on shareable dishes, featured menu items include Berkshire Pork Ribs, a Ecopia Farms Greens salad, the Bourbon Burger, Smokin’ Double Barrel Wagyu Dog, Crispy Flounder Fish & Chips and a 38 North Half Chicken straight from the restaurant’s one-of-a-kind, 13-foot tall, fully rotating rotisserie. With 70 high-definition televisions, subscriptions to all major sports cable packages and a Yahoo! Sports ticker that will run through the space highlighting fantasy football stats, Bourbon Pub will be the ultimate viewing party location for any sporting event, on any given day.

Bourbon Steak offers a more private, premium dining environment for the true Michael Mina steakhouse experience. With a focus on seasonal regional cooking, Bourbon Steak will feature tableside service with a heightened guest experience, along with steaks that are sourced from premium producers from around the world. Signature dishes will be served directly from the rotisserie and a state-of-the-art seafood boiling station, and will include items such as Certified Prime Angus steaks, A5 Japanese Wagyu, Dry-Aged Duck for Two, Wild Striped Bass, Black Truffle Mac and Cheese and innovative vegetable sides from famed South Bay farms. Guests dining in Bourbon Steak can also enjoy a flight of spirits from the restaurant’s Bourbon Cart, individually smoked tableside to accentuate the flavor profiles of each.

“Bourbon Steak & Pub at Levi’s Stadium has been the ultimate passion project for me,” said Mina. “I’ve had the rare opportunity to pair two of the things I love most – food and the football – to create two dining experiences that will create the perfect atmosphere for fans of sports and fans of great food.”

Echoing the high level of innovation found in every corner of Levi’s^®Stadium, Bourbon Steak & Pub features a state-of-the-art open kitchen, delivering a culinary theatre with a wood-burning grill, a seafood action station with a floating suspension frame that elevates the burners, and a show-stopping, one-of-a-kind, 13-foot tall, fully rotating rotisserie that’s equipped to hold up to 1,000 pounds of meat.

“We believe Levi’s Stadium to be the gold standard in next-generation stadium experiences,” said Paraag Marathe, San Francisco 49ers President. “Bourbon Steak & Pub will enable us to present that vision to Bay Area residents and visitors 365 days a year.”

Located on the ground floor of Levi’s^® Stadium at 4900 Marie P. DeBartolo Way in Santa Clara, Bourbon Steak & Pub welcomes Bay Area diners seven days a week, year-round, with Bourbon Pub open for lunch and dinner, and Bourbon Steak open for dinner only. Additionally, before the start of each home game, Michael Mina’s Tailgate will kickoff in the tailgate area of the restaurant, a member-only experience for 49ers season ticket holders, inspired by Chef Michael Mina’s elaborate, themed tailgate parties he has thrown with 49ers fans for more than two decades.

Additionally, Chef Michael Mina is pleased to announce the appointment of John Cahill, recently the Chef de Cuisine of Café des Amis in San Francisco, as Executive Chef of Bourbon Steak & Pub. Cahill has a multi-faceted role at Bourbon Steak & Pub, overseeing the whimsical pub-style lunch and dinner menus for Bourbon Pub, and the signature high-end steakhouse menu for Bourbon Steak. “We’re building something that could revolutionize the stadium experience,” explains Cahill of his new role.

For additional details on Bourbon Steak & Pub’s menu and Michael Mina’s Tailgate, visit www.BourbonSteakandPub.com, ‘Like’ BourbonSteakPub on Facebook, and follow @BourbonSteakPub on Twitter and Instagram.

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ABOUT MINA GROUP

Mina Group Inc. is a San Francisco-based restaurant management company specializing in creating and operating upscale, innovative restaurant concepts.  Mina Group is led by Chef/Owner Michael Mina whose accolades include James Beard Foundation “Who’s Who of Food and Beverage” inductee in 2013, Bon Appétit Chef of the Year, Food Arts Silver Spoon Award Winner, San Francisco Magazine Chef of the Year, and International Food and Beverage Forum’s Restaurateur of the Year.  Operating since 2002, Mina Group currently manages 22 restaurant properties including MICHAEL MINA in San Francisco (Esquire Magazine’s Restaurant of the Year 2011); BOURBON STEAK and CLOCK BAR at The Westin St. Francis on Union Square in San Francisco; RN74 at Millennium Tower in San Francisco and RN74 at the Joshua Green Building in Seattle; PABU and THE RAMEN BAR at 101 California in San Francisco; BOURBON STEAK & PUB at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara; STRIPSTEAK at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas; MICHAEL MINA Bellagio at Bellagio in Las Vegas; MICHAEL MINA 74 at Fontainebleau Miami Beach; LOCALE MARKET and FARMTABLE KITCHEN at Sundial St. Petersburg in Florida; and THE HANDLE BAR in Jackson Hole.  For a complete list of restaurants please visithttp://michaelmina.net.

ABOUT LEVI’S® STADIUM

Levi’s® Stadium will be the new home to the San Francisco 49ers, and will also serve as one of the world’s best outdoor sports and entertainment venues. It was designed by HNTB and is being built by Turner/Devcon for the Santa Clara Stadium Authority. The $1.2 billion venue will have 1.85 million square feet, seat approximately 68,500 and feature 170 luxury suites and 9,000 club seats. It was designed to be a multi-purpose facility with the flexibility to host a wide range of events, including domestic and international soccer, college football, motocross, concerts and various civic events, and will be expandable for major events such as the Super Bowl. Levi's® Stadium is owned by the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, a public joint powers authority that was established to provide for development and operation of Levi's® Stadium to ensure that the stadium serves the goals of the City of Santa Clara. For more information, go to www.LevisStadium.com.