Lew Wolff, one of the key developers responsible for the Fairmont San Jose, is now in talks to purchase a 19-story hotel project next to the Hotel DeAnza. The deal is expected to close in September and would bring the project much closer to becoming a reality.
This would likely be a trendy brand catering to young professionals that do not want to rent cars (there will be no on-site parking). It also features some really nice amenities like a rooftop restaurant and bar.
San Jose is in desperate need of more hotel rooms to support local companies and events. New hotel projects like this and the cantilevered Tribute Hotel can't come soon enough.
The corner of Third and East Santa Clara Street has gotten a beautiful new mural commissioned by the City. Enso bar and nightclub was willing to host the mural and even prepped the wall for the artists. The whole process of painting the mural was captured in the short video below.
A Chevron gas station near City Hall is going to be transformed into a 20-story residential tower with up to 250 market-rate units called the Icon. Urban Catalyst just revealed the render below last week. The sleek tower features multiple balconies and 7,500 SQFT of retail on the ground floor.
This appears to be just one of 10 project Urban Catalyst is planning for Downtown San Jose. A hotel, senior living residence, student housing building, co-living development, and an office building are also in the works. It total, they are planning to add $1 billion in value to San Jose's core.
The source article includes an interview with Joshua Burroughs and it is well worth a read if you are a Silicon Valley Business Journal Subscriber.
SJDA has a new event: Brews + Bites. Save the date: Sept. 14. A beer social in the Circle of Palms featuring favorite local brews, plus bites. We'll add some music and other goodies.
Coinciding with this event is Downtown Week, Yelp is working with SJDA to present Downtown Week Sept. 9-15 to celebrate Downtown businesses.
August is full of events. Biggest is the San Jose Jazz Summer fest. We offer musical highlights.
Maps of downtown commercial property availability and development proposals.
Boom City: SJDA's continuing summary of new downtown building proposals and west side acquisitions,
Downtown Dimension is a leading source for information about downtown San Jose news, events and businesses. Subscribe with a simple email to sjda@sjdowntown.com, subject line: Subscribe.
After the huge debate between whether to use a double or single bore subway systems for BART's expansion to Downtown San Jose, it appears there is still some controversy with the design. It was decided that the expansion would use a single bore, which would make it the first system of it's kind in the United States. The key benefit of the design is that we would not have to dig up all of Santa Clara Street and disrupt businesses and residents for years. It would actually be less expensive to build. The downside is that this segment of the BART system would be completely different than the rest of the network, and that would require extensive retraining of staff.
Now it appears that there is a compromise solution, and that is to increase the size of the tunnel from 45 feet to a massive 55 feet. By volume, that is about a 50% increase in size. This would allow the trains to run side by side like the rest of the network, but would increase cost and complexity.
It is actually an interesting proposal for me because the extra space above and below the trains could perhaps be utilized for another mode of transportation. It looks large enough for electric buses or even Light Rail. Perhaps, we could see a next generation Loop or Hyperloop system utilize those spaces. While it is clear San Jose needs to be fully connect to BART, we should also think about how we can leverage this project to support the future generation of mobility.
A new pop-up community space is coming to Fountain Alley in Downtown San Jose (35 S. 2nd Street). For three whole months, Backyard San Jose is turning a parking lot into a public space with cultural events, concerts, classes, and networking events. There will be something going on seven days a week.
Backyard San Jose is throwing a launch party on August 15th from 6pm to 9pm with music, food, beer, and wine.
The list of partners and contributors to this project is impressive:
ABM Industries
Anno Domini Gallery
BandWagon
Be The Change Yoga
Beyond Meat
Children’s Discovery Museum
Cinequest
City of San Jose
Code for San Jose
Content Magazine
Downtown Screen Printers
Feather
Fractal Flora
Gray Area Art + Technology
Good Karma
Heroes Martial Arts
Local Color
MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana
Meetup
Omnipotent Studios
Park Lab
Paseo Prototyping Festival
PATH Homeless Assistance
Pink Sparrow
Pop Kids Yoga
Public Space Authority
San Jose Come Up
San Jose Downtown Association
San Jose Improv
San Jose Made
San Jose State University Cadre Media Lab
Silicon Valley Pride
SOMA Streat Food
SPRO Coffee Lab
SPUR
Swordfighting School
The Get Down Dance Studios
The People’s Table
Universal Grammar
Urban Community
WebEnertia
WeWork Labs
ZERO1
For more details and to RSVP to their launch party (not required), head over here.
COMMERCIALCafe has crunched data from the 50 most populous urban centers to find the places that are best suited for entrepreneurs and startup companies. Dallas and San Diego took the two top spots, followed by San Jose, LA, and Houston, and Chicago.
San Jose was ranked first for tech education, tech education growth, and for the success of Kickstarter projects (36% of projects are funded). For tech employment growth, we were 2nd. We are also the seventh-most attractive city for millennials, which is counter to most stereotypes about the South Bay.
Now that Santana Row is wrapping up its final building, Federal Realty is setting their sights across the street with a new project called Santana West. The first phase officially broke ground last week and consists of an eight-story, 360,000 SQFT office building and a 1,750 space parking structure. Also, by breaking ground I mean there is already active construction on the site--it was not just a formality.
Federal Realty is trying to lease the whole building to a single tenant but is building Santana West speculatively without a tenant in tow. If all goes well, there are two additional phases that will bring the project to one million SQFT.
Unlike Santana Row, this is not a mixed-use development. In fact, there is no retail component at all--not even a coffee shop. The only likely public amenity in the project is the re-purposing of the Century 21 dome. This might seem like a missed opportunity, but two of the most successful retail projects in the United States are just across the street.
If everything goes according to plan, the building will be ready for occupancy in Q1 2021, less than two years from today.
