San Jose Lands One of the Most Expensive ZIP Codes for Housing

This is not a duplicate post from yesterday, although the topic is along the same lines. Movoto ranked the 95120 zip code--which is San Jose's Almaden area--as the 10th most expensive housing zip in the country. If you are renting here, you are likely paying around $3,395.

The study looked at median home value, median gross rent, and median selected monthly homeowner costs in order to create the ranking.

Source: Movoto

SoFA Market Good News and Bad News

Okay, so I have some bad news and some good news regarding the SoFA Market. Let's start with the bad news. The Falafel Bar is closing down and they are going to temporarily shut down all of the SoFA Market except for Vero's coffee on February 1st. Okay, now the good news. The reason why they are shutting down the space is to accelerate construction for 4 new vendors. These will include Downtown's first Ramen shop, Japanese tapas, Hawaiian Poke and Burgers, a top secret dessert place, and the long awaited Fountainhead Bar. Let's call it SoFA Market 2.0, and the ETA is late March - April.

Here was the official announcement post from the SoFA Market Facebook Page:

When we bought this building at the end of 2011, it had been vacant for more than a few years. There was little street life in the neighborhood perhaps with the exception of the San Carlos and 1st St corner. The idea of a a communal space or a neighborhood market came about as a way to help activate a street devoid of retail businesses. We envisioned a group of like-minded vendors committed to creating a vibrant urban scene and interested in locally-sourced and organic products to come together and make something out of this empty space.

It's been a long road. Building downtown has never been easy and it wasn't easy for us. The financial risks were huge and finding tenants for an unproven concept was especially challenging. But we have made significant progress, albeit slowly.

A couple of pioneering vendors signed up from the start and have weathered the pains of opening a new venue with us. Falafel Bar will soon leave the market, unfortunately. But Veros Coffee, with its affable owners Omar and Veronica Quinonez, will keep marching on (if you haven't had their highly-crafted, artisan espresso-based drinks or pour-over coffee, you really ought to try; just watching them make a joe is a joy in itself).

4 more vendors have signed up late last year and with this opportunity, we are going to push the reset button. Except for Veros Coffee at the front, we will shut down the rest of the market temporarily for a couple of months starting on February 1. This allows the construction of these new businesses to proceed in the fastest way possible.

When we reopen, you will see a new SoFA Market. There will be a diverse offering of quality food: ramen and Japanese tapas (with beer and sake to wash them down), hawaiian poke, burgers and skewers, and some very interesting dessert products (this last one we can't yet divulge). And of course, there will be The Fountainhead Bar.

Look for our re-opening in the late March - April time frame.
Please bear with us. We believe in downtown San Jose and the SoFA neighborhood in particular. We are in this for the long run, and if this were easy, everyone would have done it already!

Saturday Stats: San Jose Has Most Expensive Rent in the US

This news is going to hurt a bit, but then again I'm guessing you are already aware of the situation. The San Jose Metro now has the highest average monthly rent out of any metro are in the country at $1,807 per month. You can see the top 20 list below. San Francisco is right behind us followed by Washington DC, San Diego, Los Angeles, and New York/New Jersey.

Source: I Heart SJ, Business Insider

KALEID Gallery Kicks Off 10th Year With New Works

The South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk kicks off its 10th year on February 6th. KALEID Gallery will have two new solo exhibitions of all new work by Michael Borja, and Fernando Amaro, Jr.

Come out from 7–11pm and meet the artists, enjoy live music and check out all the venues downtown San Jose.

KALEID Gallery

88 So. First St.
San Jose, CA
www.KALEIDGallery.com

ASML Moving Santa Clara office to San Jose

ASML is a supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment that is currently based in Santa Clara at 4211 Burton Drive. The company is growing quickly (specifically this division that was formerly Brion Technologies) and has decided to move to 92,000 SQFT at "THE Campus" on Trimble Road. This office complex benefited from a $26 million upgrade last year and sits in a prime location in the middle of the Golden Triangle (the largest tech cluster in the world). For more info, hit the source link below.

Source: SVBJ

Sourisseau News: Fruit Labels in the Valley of Heart's Delight

The latest edition of the Sourisseau News provides a looks at historic fruit labels going back to the late 1800s. It would be nice to have some more murals honoring these like the one we have across the street from the San Pedro Square Market. Completely unrelated, but did you know the Fruit Cocktail was invented in San Jose?


Fruit Labels in the Valley of Heart's Delight from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Our January Sourisseau News video, sponsored by Linda L. Lester, helps us to forget the Winter Solstice and the icy north wind that whistles outside our windows. Instead, we get to languish in artful visions of the Valley of Heart's Delight— as preserved on the colorful labels which adorned the wood fruit crates and cans that shipped our bounty near and far!

TWO BUCK Tuesday at KALEID Gallery

From Phantom Galleries:

Join us for our monthly artists and quirky people get together featuring live art, demos, and $2 original art to take home!

Tuesday January 20th 7–10pm
free & open to the public

Participating artists:
Al Preciado
Jay Cee
Nekyua
Mark Martinez
James Pollard
Erica Atreya
David Mejia
Noggin Mojica
Silk screen demo by Nelson Barneond
Sculpting by Dug Stanat
Skateboard art by Joe Perea

KALEID Gallery
88 S. 4th St.
Downtown San Jose
free street parking after 6pm.
www.KALEIDGallery.com/

Knight Cities Challenge Names Finalists

The Knight Foundation is sponsoring the first Knight Cities Challenge, which is a call to make the over two dozen communities across the US more vibrant places to live and work. The winners of the challenge will share $5 million in funding to turn their ideas into realities. There were over 7,000 submissions and from that pool the Foundation selected 126 finalists. Of those, 8 of them were submitted for the San Jose community, which you can can find below along with the press release.

San Jose Finalists

San Pedro Squared by San Jose Downtown Association (Submitted by Scott Knies): Transforming the ground floor of a parking lot in the San Pedro Square to build momentum around economic revival of the area by introducing ground floor retail to the garage. [Josh: love this one!]

Civic One by The Tech Museum of Innovation (Submitted by Maryanna Rogers): Inviting the public to both imagine and test solutions for one significant city issue every year.

Crowdsourcing Three Creeks Trail Design & Development(Submitted by Scott Lane):  Involving the Willow Glen community in designing and maintaining San Jose’s Three Creeks Trail.

Knight Houses by Houslets (Submitted by Tim McCormick): Prototyping and deploying low-cost, modular, off-grid housing and workspace units to serve as civic building blocks to accommodate events, projects, creative space or the homeless.

Local Government Fiscal Assessment Tool (Submitted by Peter Furman and former Mayor Chuck Reed): Increasing transparency by designing a suite of tools to open up city budgets and make them comprehensible to the average person.

Mapping Learning Resources by Institute for the Future (Submitted by Sara Skvirsky): Mapping and sharing community knowledge through a “time bank” where residents can exchange hours of teaching for hours of learning, gain new skills and form new connections.

The Resolution (Submitted by Joshua Johnson): Making civic debates as engaging as televised sports coverage by assigning teams to an issue, crowdsourcing research, and presenting the debate live online

We Run This Space by Somos Mayfair (Submitted by Camille Llanes-Fontanilla): Transforming unused community centers, rundown buildings and empty lots into community-owned and -operated spaces for residents to shape and develop with their own innovative ideas.

The Bay Area Prototyping Festival by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (Submitted by Deborah Cullinan): Creating a large-scale urban prototyping festival that will call on the community to address challenges such as blight and lack of economic opportunity through public space solutions.

Knight Cities Challenge names 126 finalists

Finalists chosen from a pool of more than 7,000 applicants

MIAMI – Jan. 12, 2015 – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced 126 finalists in the first Knight Cities Challenge, a national call for new ideas to make the 26 communities where Knight invests more vibrant places to live and work.

The challenge received more than 7,000 submissions. Finalists proposed a range of ideas: dinner parties that bring residents together to shape the future of their cities; competitive video gaming street arcades that reenliven public spaces and help establish the next NFL; master barbers partnering with professional landscapers to transform vacant lots; and a cycling journey that will cover all 2,600 miles of Philadelphia’s streets to gather stories of the city. Submissions came from many public and government organizations, as well as design experts, urban planning organizations and individuals focused on making their cities more successful.

Each of the ideas focuses on one or more of three drivers of city success:

●     Talent: Ideas that help cities attract and keep the best and brightest

●     Opportunity: Ideas that expand economic prospects and break down divides

●     Engagement: Ideas that spur connection and civic involvement

All 26 Knight communities are represented in the pool of finalists. A full list is below.

Winners, who will receive a share of $5 million, will be announced in spring 2015.

“The challenge has introduced us to a host of new ideas and people who want to take hold of the future of their cities,” said Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation vice president for community and national initiatives. “Through these new connections we hope to grow a network of civic innovators to take on community challenges and build solutions together.”

Open to innovators of all types, the Knight Cities Challenge asked applicants to answer the question: What’s your best idea to make cities more successful?

Applicants have to follow only two rules: 1) A submission may come from anywhere, but the project must benefit one or more of 26 Knight communities. 2) The idea should focus on one or all of three key drivers of city success—talent, opportunity and engagement, as outlined above.

The challenge is part of a three-year, $15 million commitment that Knight Foundation announced in the fall of 2014.

For more information, visit KnightCities.org.