Rotary PlayGarden Centennial Project

The Rotary Club of San Jose decided to do something pretty incredible as part of their 100th anniversary. They built an impressive PlayGarden on a 4.5 acre site in the Guadalupe River Park specifically designed for both children with special needs and those without to play side by side.

Again, this isn't a park exclusively for those with special needs and it isn't a park that just happens to have a couple of attractions that those with special needs can use. The idea is for all children to play together--a novel and innovative concept appropriate for Silicon Valley. Children with disabilities will gain access to the traditional playground experience and children without disabilities will learn about awareness and acceptance.

The park will officially open to the public either on the last Week of April or first week of May. Please watch the two minute video below for an idea of all the neat attractions in the park, which may be the best in all of San Jose. The Rotary did an exceptional job here!


San Jose Rotary PlayGarden Ribbon Cutting 2015 from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

March 2015 Downtown Dimension Highlights

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

• Two bold ideas to rejuvenate St. James Park are in the works:
• To create a "Levitt Pavilion," a permanent music pavilion that would feature a minimum of 50 family friendly events each year ranging from 500 and 5,000 attendees. The Pavilion would either be at St. James between either First and Second streets or Second and Third streets.
• SPUR is suggesting a Parks Management District that would enable portions of the park to be offloaded from the city's Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services department. This would make it easier to make capital and security improvements to the park.
• M Eat-Play-Lounge at the corner of Second and San Fernando is now open (where PF Changs used to be).
• At Third and San Fernando, T-Mobile is opening a store in a space vacated long ago by Blockbuster.
• My Milkshake is open on South Second and allows patrons to design their own custom milkshake [Josh: have been here and they have great milkshakes]
• The San Jose Earthquakes will open their regular season in the new 18,000 seat Avaya Stadium. More than half of the seats have been snapped up by season ticket holders. The stadium also features the largest outdoor bar in North America--3,647 SQFT with 45 different beers!
• MidPen Housing has started construction on the $31 million Donner Lofts project at 156 E. St. John Street, which includes 102-units and 2,500 SQFT of retail.
• Core Companies is proposing a 105-unit apartment complex at the corner of East Reed and South First (in SoFA).
• The San Jose Fire Museum took a large step towards becoming a reality with a $1 million donation used to buy the Fire Station One building.

To read the full newsletter, click here!

Veggielution Article

There was a great article in the Merc last week about Veggielution, San Jose's largest urban farm. Located at Emma Prusch (where Highways 101, 280, and 680 all meet), Veggielution volunteers grow a diverse range of organic veggies as well as eggs and honey. They also distributed more than 20,500 pounds of free produce in 2013 to serve the local homeless population. To read the article, head over here.

Santana Row March-May 2015 Happenings

San Jose, CA – A wine stroll to benefit veterans, a cultural cooking demo for Silicon Valley Reads and the return of annual events such as Mommy & Me kids’ program, Cars & Croissants and the Summer Yoga Series are all coming up in the weeks ahead at Santana Row.

Santana Row presents “A Taste of Diversity”
An event of Silicon Valley Reads 2015: “Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience”
Saturday, March 7, 11 a.m., Park Valencia

More than 140 free public events continue through early March at various Santa Clara County locations, including Santana Row. On March 7, chefs from local restaurants will gather in the park area across from Maggiano’s to cook various traditional cuisines from different cultures. The audience will be invited to sample the dishes and be given a recipe card to take home.

Silicon Valley Reads is an annual community program that selects books focused on a contemporary theme and offers free events in 12 cities throughout the county, including music, dance, poetry, panel discussions, films and storytelling. For more information, go to www.SiliconValleyReads.org.

Nowruz Celebration at Santana Row
Tuesday, March 24, 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

In partnership with the Iranian Federated Women's Club (IFWC), Santana Row celebrates the arrival of spring and the 2015 Persian New Year at Park Valencia. The free event features nationally-acclaimed musicians and performers, all free to the public. The Persian New Year, commonly referred to as Nowruz, is a spring festival of Persian origin, which has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years. It marks the first day of spring. The festival of Nowruz is celebrated in the Middle East, Central and South Asia.

Cars & Croissants Series Kick-off Event
Saturday, March 28 and every fourth Saturday of the month
9 a.m. to noon

Santana Row partners with 100 OCT again this year to present Cars & Croissants on The Row, a monthly gathering for exotic car owners and car enthusiasts. On the fourth Saturday of the month through December, exotic car owners are invited to park on Santana Row Boulevard from Alyssum Lane to Tatum Boulevard, display their cars and mingle with other enthusiasts. The morning meet-up for coffee, croissants and cars drew 400 people and 60 cars during the first event and continues to grow in popularity. This event is free and open to the public.

A look ahead to April and beyond…

Paws for Purple Hearts Wine Stroll
Thursday, April 23, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Join the wine stroll to benefit Paws for Purple Hearts, an organization that works with veterans in training service dogs for other veterans who are physically or psychologically scarred from combat-related injuries. Some of the vets and the dogs will be at The Row during the stroll.

Your $30 Ticket Includes:
• Wine Tastings & Light Bites
• Exclusive Discounts from Santana Row Shops & Restaurants
• Signature Santana Row Wine Glass

Paws for Purple Hearts (PPH) is the first program of its kind to offer therapeutic intervention for veterans and active-duty military personnel by teaching those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to train service dogs for their comrades with combat-related injuries. PPH is built upon the trusted and time-honored tradition of veterans helping veterans. For more information on this event please contact the Santana Row concierge, 408.551.4611.

San Jose Dancin’ Downtown Festival, Park Valencia
Sunday, April 26, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Santana Row and sjDANCEco has partnered again this year to bring together local as well as regional dance artists to celebrate National Dance Week. The free outdoor festival features the diversity of the area’s dance community.

Enjoy performances by sjDANCEco (Maria Basile, Gabriel Mata), Diablo Ballet, Pointe of Departure, Erin East, Visual Rhythm and Zohar Dance Company.

Summer Yoga Series begins May 2
Every Saturday through September, 9 a.m. Park Valencia

Free Yoga on Saturdays, presented by lululemon athletica begins May 2 and is held every Saturday through September, taking advantage of the best weather seasons!

Practice your sun salutations under the sunshine at Park Valencia every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. The complimentary classes are held outdoors, with registration opening at 8:30 a.m. each week. For more information, contact lululemon, 408.557.8721.

Mommy & Me and Daddies, Too, season kick-off event
10 a.m. to noon, May 12

The popular kids’ club returns for the season with free entertainment, interactive games, crafts and educational activities designed for parents and their pre-school aged children. Special guest for the event is Buddy from Dinosaur Train. Families can also enjoy arts and crafts, face painting, music, balloon art, story time and more.

Details: 10 a.m. to noon at Park Valencia. Mommy & Me is a free kids’ club held on the second Tuesday of every month from May through December. For more information, call 408.551.4611 or visit www.SantanaRow.com.

Save-the-Date for the Annual Summer Fashion Show!
Saturday, June 6

This popular summer event returns for the seventh year with an exciting venue change: for the first time, the two poolside runway shows will take place at Misora, the newest luxury residential complex at Santana Row.

As always, the shows will feature the season’s best fashions for women and men as well as style surprises and special guests.
A portion of the sales will benefit a yet-unnamed charity.

Rainy Day Rewards, through March 31, 2015
Santana Row is optimistic that rain is on the way and wants to reward shoppers and diners braving bad weather. When there’s a 70 percent or greater chance for rain, they will be offered discounts that include 15 percent off purchases at participating shops and restaurants, a free signature Santana Row golf umbrella for customers who spend $150 anywhere on The Row and a $20 gift certificate to a participating shop or restaurant for customers who spend $300 on a designated Rainy Day.
No need to get wet: Customers can pick up a complimentary umbrella to use while shopping and dining and then return it before leaving. The yellow umbrellas are conveniently located throughout The Row: outside Concierge, Via between Village California Bistro and Lark Creek Blue and the valet parking lot in the Winchester Garage.

Twitter Promotion @SantanaRow invites Tweets and Instagram tags 
For a Chance to Win Gift Cards to Restaurants at The Row
Santana Row’s Twitter campaign and photo contest continues through the @SantanaRow Twitter handle. The contest invites anyone at Santana Row to Tweet or Instagram photos of a new outfit, haircut, meal, event or artsy shots and then tag it with the hash tag #LifeonTheRow. Every month, Santana Row will post an album on Facebook with all of the photos with the #LifeonTheRow hash tag. The person who took the best or most original photo will win a gift card to a Santana Row restaurant.

South FIRST FRIDAYS Tonight!

Come enjoy the warm weather tonight in Downtown San Jose's SoFA district with an art walk spanning 20 different locations! Below is a handy map with the participating venues.

VTA Opens Innovation Center

The VTA opened an innovation center a couple weeks ago at its River Oaks headquarters (3331 N First Street). This is a space where VTA teams, companies, and students can get together and work on new transportation technology. VTA is looking at a variety of ways to improve the customer experience and this new innovation center will help them focus on these efforts.

Below are some examples of the technology projects that VTA is currently working on:

• A zero emissions vehicle with dynamic, on-demand routing directing its driver to pick you up with a request from your smartphone—we’re requesting proposals for the software to drive this and looking closely at the operational challenges.
• Bluetooth beacons throughout the system to tell smartphone apps where you are so they can help you plan your trip, improve accessibility or offer you coupons—this will be a central focus of Hack My Ride 2015, VTA’s app challenge starting this summer.
• Expanding our popular TransLoc real-time light rail arrival app to our bus fleet, as requested by our customers.
• An open-source, multimodal  trip planner for any combination of transit, walking, biking, park and ride, bike share and driving (if you must). You can customize your biking directions based on your safety, climbing and speed preferences.
• Touch screen and LCD monitors at light rail stations and transit hubs to provide real-time information, trip planning help, and more.
• A pilot big data project with Allied Telesis to share and analyze camera feeds, sensors and social media in the cloud, enabling better collaboration with security partners for Super Bowl 50.
• Working with startup Transitmix, a Code for America spinoff backed by Y Combinator, to move from paper and spreadsheets to an immediately responsive online transit planning tool that can engage the public and improve planning.
• Working with our North San Jose neighbor Cisco on the Internet of Things for transportation—buses that talk to trains that talk to bus stops that talk to traffic signals that talk to bikes that talk to...you get the idea.

Source: VTA

Notre Dame Park Website

Last year a team of Axis and City Heights residents in Downtown San Jose did an awesome job cleaning up a disheveled dirt lot next to their building and turning it into something the community could actually use. The San Jose Downtown Association even jumped in and installed a new fence which you can see below.

The end result of this grassroots project is a park where neighbors can garden, kids can play, and pet owners can bring their dogs for a run. Now the "Notre Dame Park" even has a website, which you can visit right over here!

If you are wondering about this history of that 7up sign (which was also recently restored), check out the short video below.

Notre Dame Park Neighborhood from WMS media Inc. on Vimeo.

Wednesday Wishlist: Google's New Office Concept in San Jose

Not content with just transforming advertising, mobile computing, and cars, Google has set its sights on completely changing the environment in which people work. The 10 minute video below is a bit lengthy for my attention span, but completely worth watching.

Google is proposing a massive renovation of its suburban and generic Mountain View offices that would turn them into one of the most innovative office campuses in the world. Instead of creating fixed structures, the spaces would be very easy to reconfigure (like Lincoln Logs)... making them able to accommodate future office innovations decades from now. The offices space is then draped in a transparent solar-power absorbing canopy that makes you feel like you are outside. Bike and pedestrian paths are completely inter-weaved with the buildings as you can see from the photos below, and unlike Apple will be accessible to the public.

Given the tens of millions of suburban-style office space we have in San Jose, I'm hoping that local companies will find some inspiration and really think about how to design future office buildings that are not just generic boxes. Samsung is doing a great job with their new building, but Google just took it to a whole new level.

Source: SVBJ