Saturday Stats: Best Cities to Trick-or-Treat 2015

San Jose has reached an all-time high in the list of "Best Cities to Trick-or-Treat!" Zillow creates this list using several variables such as Zillow Home Value Index, population density, Walk Score, local crime data, and the percentage of the population under the age of 15. This should theoretically provide the cities that provide "the most candy, in the least amount of time, with the fewest safety risks."

For 2015, San Jose ranked #2 on the list! Last year San Jose was #5, and the year before that we were #4. Within San Jose the top neighborhoods for trick-or-treating were Cambrian Park, Almaden Valley, Willow Glen, Blossom Valley, and the Rose Garden.

To see the other cities that made the list, just scroll down or hit the source link.

Source: Zillow

Inaugural Viva Calle Photos

Check out some photos from the inaugural San Jose Viva Calle courtesy of Cardinal2007 (a regular on the SJ Development Forum). The event shut down 6 miles of streets to allow biking, walking, or running throughout multiple San Jose communities. Most of the photos are from the festivals at St. James Park, Parque de los Pobladores, and Emma Prusch Park. It was a fantastic event which I hope will be repeated every year.

Photo of Downtown San Jose From Groesbeck Hill Park

Check out this rare view of Downtown San Jose from the east that Cardinal2007 posted on the San Jose Development Forum. The photo was taken from Groesbeck Hill Park and shows Raging Waters and Lake Cunningham in the foreground. Rancho San Antonio and the Lehigh Permanente Quarry are in the background. I thought this was a drone photo until I read the description on the Flickr page.

Downtown San Jose CA by mcrider, on Flickr

"A different view of downtown from almost perfectly east near Lake Cunningham shows downtown and behind it the mountains around Rancho San Antonio and the Lehigh Permanente Quarry."

The Station on North First - 1.6 Million SQFT Office Project

According to Robertee from The San Jose Development Forum, Boston Properties has ramped up marketing for their largest proposed project in San Jose--"The Station on North First." The office project would include up to 1.6 million SQFT of high-end office space, 10,000 SQFT of retail, and large open spaces filled with amenities. Check out the latest renderings and highlights below.

The Station on North First Highlights

• 24.3 acre campus
• 10,000 SF of retail space
• Convenient below ground parking
• Active, transit-oriented boulevard
• 5 - 10 story buildings arranged around two programmed quads
• The Quads & Grand Boulevard link the buildings and create a cohesive urban experience
• Each campus building features a double-height Great Room
• The Great Rooms serve as main entry points and lobbies, while offering communal space that can house a variety of events
• Indoor and outdoor fitness opportunities and amenity space
• Both social and sports outdoor areas
• Visual connectivity between buildings
• Connected floor plates up to 154K SF
• Typical floor plate: 35 - 45K SF
• Retail and urban plazas on North First Street
• Social gathering and recreation quads
• Collaborative Great Rooms and amenities
• Abundant natural light

Wednesday Wishlist: Halloween in the Park! (Part VIII)

In what has become a San Jose Blog October tradition, today we have a Wednesday Wishlist post for Halloween in the Park. The idea is to build on the momentum that Christmas in the Park brings to San Jose each year and create something of similar scale for the month of October with Halloween in the Park! A lot of the infrastructure such as wiring, lighting, and booths might even be able to be shared between the events. The goal would be to make Downtown San Jose the epicenter of October Halloween experiences.

Below you will find brainstorming ideas we have collected for this concept so far over the years. Please have a look and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

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The largest draw to Downtown San Jose for many years now has been Christmas in the Park. It has continued to grow year after year and brings in visitors from all over the Bay Area. It's economic impact is substantial and helps keep many Downtown businesses and restaurants alive.

What would you think about a similar event for Halloween? Picture Downtown lit up in orange and purple with elaborate Halloween displays assembled by local artists. Perhaps infrastructure could even be shared with Christmas in the Park (e.g. retail booths). A strong event in October would help maintain traffic between the summer months and Christmas in the Park. Here are the ideas we have so far:

• Animated Halloween Displays
• Created by local artists
• Analogous to the Christmas displays that attract many families during Christmas in the Park (almost half a million visitors)
• Family friendly so that everyone can enjoy it (PG/PG13, perhaps around the same level as Great America Halloween Haunt)
• Halloween Lighting
• Orange, purple, and green LED lighting on trees
• May be possible to use new programmable LED lighting that can go from Halloween colors to Christmas colors with the push of a button, allowing the lights to stay up for Christmas in the Park as well and reducing setup/take-down costs.
• Halloween Food
• Booths with candied apples, chocolates, candy, pumpkin seeds, etc.
• Food trucks
• Trick-or-treating station - a free piece of candy to anyone wearing a costume any day in October (could also be used to hand out promotional flyers for Downtown events/businesses/resources)
• Retail Booths selling Halloween items, for example:
• Artwork (paintings, glass pumpkins, etc.)
• Home decor/crafts like candles
• Light-up hats/necklaces/bracelets
• Costumes
• Zombie/Halloween make-up station 
• Halloween-themed Carnival Games
• Pirates of Emerson and Candlelighters (Fremont) do a good job of providing family-friendly games themed around Halloween
• A handful of children's rides could also be added to the Paseo and reused for Christmas in the Park
• Interactive Art
• ZERO1-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Pumpkins
• Instead of the sponsored Christmas trees in Christmas in the Park, how about decorated Pumpkins (can even be Styrofoam so there is no mess/decay)?
• Pumpkin carving station for families. 
• Pumpkin carving contest.
• Costumed Entertainers
• Walking around the area, not necessarily scaring people but adding to the ambiance and providing photo opportunities for families
• Haunts / Mazes
• Would be ideal if these were nearby, perhaps in vacant retails spaces, surface parking lots, the San Jose Convention Center tent, or at SJSU.
• Could partners with one of the established San Jose haunt providers such as Deadtime Dreams or The World's Largest Haunted House.
• Potential Events
• Zombie-O-Rama can be used to kick off Halloween in the Park (late Sep. / early Oct. time-frame)
• Zombie Crawl
• Dia De Los Muertes Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball

As in previous years, please post your suggestions below and I'll merge them in!

Last Call for 2016 Knight Cities Challenge

Knight Cities Challenge opens in San Jose for applications

Submissions are open from Oct. 1 to Oct 27

SAN JOSE, Calif.— What’s your best idea to help your city succeed? The Knight Cities Challenge opens today calling on innovators of all types in San Jose to answer this question.

Now in its second year, the national challenge is an initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The challenge seeks new ideas to make San Jose and the 25 other communities where Knight invests more vibrant places to live and work.  Winners will receive a share of $5 million and become part of a network of civic innovators; funding will be granted at all levels from small to large amounts. Applications will be accepted through Oct. 27 at knightcities.org. The challenge has two main guidelines:

1. A submission may come from anywhere, but the project must take place in or benefit one or more of 26 Knight communities.

2. The idea should focus on one or more of three key drivers of city success:

·      Talent: Ideas that help cities attract and keep talented people.

·      Opportunity: Ideas that expand economic prospects by breaking down divides and making new connections.

·      Engagement: Ideas that spur connection and civic involvement.

The challenge is open to anyone from anywhere: neighbors, architects, activists, artists, city planners, entrepreneurs, students, educators, city officials, as well as governments and organizations. More information is available on knightcities.org.

The initial application will be easy to complete. You don’t have to be a professional grant writer, but you should be ready with a plan to make your idea a reality.

“Through the challenge we want to find new voices and new ideas that capture the three key ingredients of city success—talent, opportunity and engagement. We see these as essential to the challenge and to building stronger futures for all of our cities,” said Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation vice president for community and national initiatives.

If you have questions about the challenge, you can join us for virtual office hours or in-person events in many of the 26 Knight communities to learn more. The schedule, which is regularly updated, can be accessed here.

Community members and entrepreneurs, as well as experts in urban planning, design, academia and government will help Knight review entries. Knight will announce finalists and winners in early 2016.

The 26 Knight communities include eight that have a resident program director: Akron, Ohio; Charlotte, N.C.; Detroit; Macon, Ga.; Miami; Philadelphia; St. Paul, Minn.; and San Jose, Calif. In 18 cities community foundations guide Knight’s grantmaking: Aberdeen, S.D.; Biloxi, Miss.; Boulder, Colo.; Bradenton, Fla.; Columbia, S.C.; Columbus, Ga.; Duluth, Minn.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Gary, Ind.; Grand Forks, N.D.; Lexington, Ky.; Long Beach, Calif.; Milledgeville, Ga.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Palm Beach County, Fla.; State College, Penn.; Tallahassee, Fla.; and Wichita, Kan.

In March 2015 Knight announced 32 winners of the first Knight Cities Challenge. Last year’s winner from San Jose was:

·         San Pedro Squared- bringing life to deadened public space and healing the streetscape fabric by stitching retail into the ground floor of parking structures.

Have an idea? Visit knightcities.org to apply. The challenge closes on Oct. 27, 2015, at 12 p.m. ET.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

New Rendering Video for Museum Place!

The most ambitious high-rise proposal in Downtown San Jose is getting a bit more real. Insight Realty has created a simulation of what some of the spaces in the massive project could look like. "Museum Place" includes a 60,000 SQFT expansion of The Tech Museum, 210,000 SQFT of office space, twelve floors of condos, a boutique hotel, and a floor of luxury penthouse condos. Watch the two minute video below to get a sense of what the area around The Tech might look like in a few years!

Source: Hillrise from the San Jose Development Forum

Lufthansa is Coming to San Jose!

When it rains it pours! SJC has landed another major international flight, this time to Frankfurt, Germany. Lufthansa is the largest European Airline and Frankfurt is their largest hub. Not only will this give San Joseans easy access to Germany, but every major city in Europe. This is the third international route San Jose has landed in 2015!

Luftansa will fly five nonstops each week on an Airbus A340-300 carrying 298 seats. Flights to Frankfurt will leave San Jose on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays. The flights depart at 3:20pm and arrive at 11:35am the next day. Tickets will start around $977 round-trip and flights start on 4/29/2016--beating British Airways to market by a week.

This will become San Jose's 6th international route (Guadalajara, Cabo San Lucas, Tokyo, Beijing, and London are the others). There are rumors that a nonstop flight to Seoul, Korea will be next. 

In 2016, San Jose will surpass Oakland International Airport in terms of international countries served and will have more international routes than at any other point in SJC's history.

Sources: SVBJ, The Merc