Nox Cookie Bar

First off, quick apology for the recent lack of posts. It has been a crazy week, but everything should be back to normal starting Monday.

I have been meaning to plug a cookie delivery service called Nox for quite some time. They deliver freshly baked cookies from 11:30am to 2:30am, letting you fulfill a cookie craving without leaving the comforts of your own home (including those late-night cravings). They also participate in quite a few Downtown San Jose events.

Cookie flavors include Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Snickerdoodle, and Oatmeal Raisin. Pumpkin Spice is a temporary flavor for November.

If you live near Downtown San Jose, you're in luck. Cookies will be delivered in 30-40 minutes and the delivery fee is only $3. In the greater San Jose area (including Santa Clara and Cupertino), delivery will take a bit longer and the fee rises to $6.

For more info, head over to the Nox Cookie Bar website.

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 6th Happiest City in the US

A recent study established 15 metrics that contribute to happiness and used them to rank the largest metros in the US in terms of happiness. These metrics range from eating healthy, education, financial security, and vacation time. San Jose came in at a very respectable 6th place of all cities in the US. San Francisco ranked 17th. Boulder took the top spot followed by Santa Cruz (not surprising).

Source: National Geographic, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

New luxury apartment project coming to Santana Row area

Greystar Real Estate Partners is going to transform an existing 216 unit apartment building into a a 636 unit luxury apartment community called The Reserve. The project is at 881 S. Winchester Boulevard, very close to Santana Row.

The apartments will mostly be one and two-bedroom loft-style units in four to five-story buildings with two levels of underground parking. Amenities include a pool, rooftop lounge, a fitness center, and 8,000 SQFT of retail.

The Reserve should be ready for leasing in 2020.

Source: SVBJ (subscription required)

Happy Halloween 2017!!! + Halloween in the Park (Part XI)

Keeping with San Jose Blog tradition, in October we have a Wednesday Wishlist post for Halloween in the Park. Since tomorrow is already November, I thought it might be neat to do this post on Halloween itself. 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
• Subzero/ZERO1-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Halloween-themed video game kiosks and/or arcades
• 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 Muertos Events
• Halloween/Dia De Los Muertos Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball

Inspirations:

• Candle Lighters
• Pirates of Emerson
• The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze (photos below)

San Jose is the 2nd Best City for Trick-or-Treating!

As a huge fan of Halloween, I'm thrilled to see San Jose maintain its Zillow rank as the 2nd best city to Trick-or-Treat in. Each year, Zillow creates the list using population density, walk score, home values, local crime data, and age distributions. This should theoretically provide the cities where trick-or-treaters can get the most candy, in the least amount of time, with the fewest safety risks.

This year San Francisco has overtaken Philadelphia for the top spot, which now ranks #3 right behind San Jose.

Within San Jose, the top specific neighborhoods for trick-or-treating were West San Jose, Willow Glen, Cambrian Park, Rose Garden, Almaden Valley.

Source: Zillow

Scott Knies on big changes coming to Downtown

The Merc has a great interview with Scott Knies, the Executive Director of the San Jose Downtown Association. He discusses big changes, including the potential Google mega-campus which he is already dubbing the GoJo district (Google Jose). Residential, restaurants, and height restrictions also come up in the conversation. Check it out at the link below.

Source: The Merc

Saturday Stats: SJC is the 4th fastest growing airport in terms of international travel

We went from a couple to nine international routes in what seems like no time at all. Based on international passengers, San Jose had the 4th fastest growing airport in the country between 2012 and 2016.

I would actually argue that we led the country in international growth. Reno, Austin, and Columbus were the top three and all of them had almost 0 international travel in 2012. When you take a number close to 0 and add anything to it, you are going to get a very large percentage. San Jose went from 84,000 international passengers in 2012 to 330,400 in 2016. That growth of quarter million passengers is not only far more than any other airport on the top 10, but it is greater than the rest of the top 5 combined.

SJC also had more passengers in 2012 than any other airport on the list--the larger you are the more difficult it is to grow. This makes the growth SJC has shown even more impressive.

Source: SVBJ (requires subscription)

International Passengers

New Homewood Suites by Hilton in North San Jose

Homewood Suites at 4315 N. First St. officially opened on October 13th. This is an extended-stay hotel ideal for business travelers and has 145 units that are more like mini-apartments. Every room has a full kitchen, separate living and sleeping spaces, and are at least 434 SQFT. They also have two-bedroom suites available. One of their unique features is a grocery shopping service that lets guests provide their shopping lists and employees will buy the groceries for them.

The new Hotel is located just north of Highway 237 and is just a few minutes away from Alviso, the @First shopping center anchored by Target, and Levi's Stadium.

Source: SVBJ (subscription required)