SJDA's first public meeting since Feb will discuss Downtown stabilization plan

It's been a brutal four and a half months for Downtown San Jose businesses. Multiple restaurants have shut their doors for good and yesterday I heard MUJI will be closing.

The San Jose Downtown Association has a stabilization plan, which they will be discussing next week at their first public board meeting since the start of the year. They surveyed more than 1,200 people and have prepared a presentation to discuss short-term solutions for helping the Downtown business community during the COVID crisis.

The meeting takes place on Friday, August 14, 2020 at 8:15am-9:30am using Facebook live. For more info, click here.

Christmas in the Park is going to look vastly different this year

You might be wondering what will happen to one of San Jose's most beloved events this year due to Covid. Fortunately, Christmas in the Park will go on this year. Unfortunately, it will not be in Downtown San Jose for the first time in 40 years.

The current plan is to turn Christmas in the Park into a drive-through holiday experience at History San Jose. Below are a few mock-ups of what the revised event could look like. While it will be different, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a very innovative experience and provide some fresh ideas for 2021. I'm looking forward to it and hope Downtown San Jose still goes all out this year during the holidays.

Source: SVBJ

July 2020 Downtown Dimension Highlights

The latest addition of Downtown Dimension is now live. Below is a summary of the content this month.

The JULY 2020 Downtown Dimension is now available for download.

In this edition:

• SJDA President Katia McClain reflects on the recent protests over the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of police.
• The City of San Jose's parking program will make some big changes soon -- the beginning of free 90-minute parking for everyone in ParkSJ garages and the end of the Parking Validation program.
• SJDA has been involved in some of the murals going up on plywood, windows and doors around downtown.
• The San Jose Downtown Foundation worked with two other GoFundMe collaborators to provide financial relief for 18 downtown businesses damaged after the protests. More than 200 people from the San Jose community donated to the relief fund.  The organizers expressed their feelings about why they wanted to help.
• 10 new Downtown Doors are going up, full of messages, diversity, color and vibrancy -- and expressed by area high school students.
• Plantlush opens amid pandemic and protests along East Santa Clara Street.  The owner talks about her extraordinary opening week.
• Welcome SJDA's new Policy and Operations Director, Nathan Ulsh.

Help Stabilize Downtown San Jose - Take a Survey
 

San Jose Downtown Association is undergoing a stabilization planning process to identify priorities and improvements – both in the near-term to aid in downtown’s recovery, as well as in the longer-term to make lasting change in downtown over the next several years. Please take five minutes to complete the survey and join us in guiding the future of Downtown San Jose through recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. What do you consider most important in the near and medium terms? Prioritize the importance of such topics including events, promotions, communications, small business support, downtown cleaning, developing new services and programs, social equity efforts and more. Your input is very important. In appreciation of your contribution to this survey, SJDA will give away $50 downtown gift certificates to five survey respondents chosen at random.

Take the Survey Haga La Encuesta Tham gia cuộc thăm dò ý kiến

Other ways to stay connected to Downtown:

The Downtowner Online continues to be sent out on Wednesdays.  This weekly email features downtown businesses including virtual events and ways to support downtown. Subscribe

San Pedro Street is blocked to expand outdoor dining capacity

The Downtown San Jose is finding creative ways to survive during these tough times. The latest initiative is fully closing down San Pedro Street between Santa Clara and Saint John and allowing restaurants to expand their outdoor seating onto the street itself. Farmers Union, O'Flaherty's, The Old Spaghetti Factory, District, Sushi Confidential, and the Old Wagon are some of the restaurants taking advantage of this.

I had a great dinner at District last Friday and it felt almost like pre-covid times (except for the masks and the menu being on your phone of course).

San Pedro Street has been shut down before for special events like Super Bowl 50, but it has never been used like this before. The plan is to keep the street closed until September, but I hope it actually becomes permanent. This is arguably the liveliest street in Downtown San Jose and expanding the usable space makes it both safer for pedestrians and more interesting to walk through or visit. It also would open the potential of adding more retail along the garage next to MOMENT or even cafes and pop-ups in the middle of the street.

Source: SVBJ

Miro Tower Photos

Fortunately not all major construction projects are stalled due to the Coronavirus. Miro continues to make great progress in Downtown San Jose and both towers are almost at full height (nearly 30 stories). Below are a couple photos taken from SJSU by gillynova.

Despite everything our skyline is evolving and there is still much excitement around Downtown San Jose in the developer community.

Source: gillynova from the San Jose Development Forum

Affordable housing project proposed for Guitar Showcase site

A developer would like to relocate the Guitar Showcase store at 3090 S. Bascom Avenue, raze the building, and construct a six-story residential building in its place. The project would have 90 apartments and 100% of them would be classified as affordable housing. The plan is to have a mix of one, two, and three bedroom units ranging from 405 SQFT to 975 SQFT. 29 of the units would be reserved for formerly homeless making no more than 30% of our area's median income.

Also included in the project would be 2,200 SQFT of commercial space on the ground floor and 25 parking spaces.

If this project comes to fruition, Guitar Showcase won't be moving very far. There is an available space for them right next door.

Source: SVBJ

Free San Jose COVID Testing

I'm back from a short workation to Tahoe. While I didn't do anything crazy like visiting a casino, I plan on getting COVID tested soon and thought I would share the easiest way to do it for anyone interested.

This week, free pop-up COVID-19 tests will be administered at the County of Santa Clara service Center Auditorium (1555 Berger Road, San Jose) and Independence High School, C Commons (617 N. Jackson Avenue, San Jose).

I have done the pop-up tests twice now, and it is extremely easy to do. The new method is completely painless--they do not shove the q-tip all the way up your nose as they did with early tests. On a scale of 1-10 with a shot in the arm being an 8, I would put this at a 1 in terms of pain/discomfort, which is to say there isn't any.

They also don't even ask for your insurance, it is completely free and you get the results within a few days. You do not need symptoms, a doctor's note, or proof of residency. Just walk in and get your test. If you show up early it should be a very short wait. The last one I did was towards the end of the day and it took 30 minutes total to wait in line, provide contact info, and get tested. Masks are required the entire time.

Again, the tests are at the County of Santa Clara Service Center Auditorium and Independence High School. The pop-up sites will be open from 10am to 3pm, Tuesday thought Friday. If you are in South San Jose, they will also be doing tests in the South County Annex (9300 Wren Avenue, Gilroy).

Source: San Jose Inside

Transportation Innovation

San Jose Spotlight has a great article discussing how we can solve for our future transportation issues. Eventually traffic will return, in fact this past week I did hit a few spots on 101 that reminded me of the good old pre-covid days. We have BART now, which is fantastic, but going forward we should be looking at faster and cheaper solutions.

In fact, there is a grade separated, point-to-point solution that exists today. The Boring Company Loop. Tunnels can be built at $10 million per mile versus $1 billion per mile for a traditional subway, and autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles can transport you from a station to any other station in the network at up to 150 miles per hour. It sounds too good to be true, but so did electric cars that are affordable and fun to drive and reusable rockets that can land themselves. Also, the Boring Company already has two projects in the works. There is a functional test track in LA that goes from SpaceX headquarters to a residential backyard (no joke) and a Loop in Las Vegas that will connect the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Strip, and the airport.

It's a killer suggestion that would help bring our transportation into the future (it is 2020 after all) while improving safety, convenience, and cost-per-mile. Check out Norman Kline's article over here.

Source: San Jose Spotlight