San Jose Greek Festival 2024!

This weekend is the annual San Jose Greek Festival, one of the largest ethnic festivals in the Bay Area. If you like amazing Greek food, live entertainment, and friendly people, this is a San Jose tradition you won't want to miss. 

The festival is entirely volunteer run and all the food is made using family recipes that have been used for generations. The Greek folk dancing will be done by teams that compete nationally and the costumes the dancers wear are handmade and unique to many of the regions in Greece. It's a very authentic experience all around.

Admission is only $5 per person, children under 12 are free.

The festivities take place on May 31st (5pm-10pm), June 1st (11am-10pm), and May 31st (11am-8pm). The area immediately surrounding St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (1260 Davis St.) is the epicenter of the event. Free parking and shuttle service is available at 1900, 1922, 1960, and 2022 The Alameda.

For a preview, below are photos by Victoria Symrniotis from last year's event.

Downtown San Jose gets its first Japanese Ramen restaurant

Hinodeya Ramen has officially opened a restaurant in Downtown San Jose near the intersection of Market Street and Santa Clara Street. Surprisingly, this will be Downtown's first Japanese ramen restaurant--not the first Japanese restaurant but the first specifically specializing in ramen.

Hinodeya in headquartered in Japan and has a few other US locations. There are a number of outposts in San Francisco and one in Campbell, Newark, and Dallas.

This is long overdue Downtown and fortunately the restaurant is off to a great start.

Hinodeya is located at 9 N Market Street and is open from 11am to 10pm from Sunday through Thursday and 11am to 11pm on Friday and Saturday.

Spartan Keyes neighborhood getting new townhomes in place of industrial building

Valley Oak Partners has plans to redevelop a single-story industrial building on a 3.87-acre site into 68 townhomes. The three-story townhomes would be split into 12 two-bedroom 2.5-bath units, 28 three-bedroom 3-bath units, and 28 three-bedroom 2.5-bath units with an optional 4th bedroom. Sizes range between 1,428 SQFT to 2,030 SQFT.

This project is worth mentioning as there are very few new options with a family-friendly four-bedroom configuration, and there will be up to 28 of those units here. 

The location is very central, close to Downtown San Jose and blocks away from amenities like Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, Kelley Park, History San Jose, and Sharks Ice. An action park is also being planned nearby. At the same time, the neighborhood is an odd mix of both residential and industrial uses. This leads me to believe the townhomes will be reasonably priced relative to other projects of similar size in Silicon Valley.

Source: SVBJ

3Below Open House

Next weekend Downtown San Jose's last remaining movie theater is having an open house. In addition to playing movies, a lot of people don't realize that 3Below also hosts dozens of live events and educational programs. 

The action-packed event will highlight 3Below's importance to the San Jose art scene. Next Saturday and Sunday they will feature free movies and live entertainment, complimentary food, interactive programming, theater acts, and guest speakers. Even parking is validated. To see the full schedule and get your free movie tickets, head over here.

The open house will go from 11am to 9pm on June 1st and 2nd.

SJC is finally getting nonstop service to Washington DC

When it rains it pours. Earlier this week Frontier announced they are coming back to San Jose with five nonstop routes. Now, it looks like Spirit Airlines is launching one of San Jose's most requested routes of all time.

San Jose is one of the few big cities without a direct connection to DC. Given how important AI, semiconductors, and technology in general are to the United States--this makes no sense. Fortunately, Spirit Airlines is working on a nonstop flight to Ronald Regan Washington National Airport (DCA).

If it goes through, it will be the only low-fare airline option between Silicon Valley and Washington DC. The route is currently pending approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

I fly quite a bit but have yet to experience Spirit Airlines. That will be changing very soon. I knew they were categorized as an "ultra-low-cost" airline that slots below Southwest, but I didn't realize just how inexpensive they could be. You can book a business-class-sized seat to Vegas from SJC for less than the Southwest fare on several dates. If you are travelling light, the cheapest option can be half the cost of Southwest--which I already thought was pretty reasonable.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose installing speeding cameras in late 2025

San Joseans with a lead foot will have to pay extra attention towards the end of next year. San Jose is placing 33 speed cameras in high-collision rate areas, which will automatically mail tickets to speeding drivers.

Traffic deaths doubled in San Jose from 29 in 2012 to 65 in 2022. The primary goal of these cameras is not revenue, but safety. All revenue from citations is required to be used for traffic calming measures.

The estimated cost of the equipment is $7 million, with an additional $3.6 million for data collection, public engagement, and racial equity analysis. That last item is specifically to avoid having these cameras only target specific ethnic communities or low-income neighborhoods.

Potential locations will be provided to the San Jose City Council this fall and the system is expected to go live by the end of 2025. 

Source: San Jose Inside

SJC regains an airline and five more nonstop routes

San Jose Mineta International Airport had some pretty big news yesterday. Frontier Airlines is returning to San Jose! It's always exciting to get a new airline, or in this case regain one. Frontier previously flew to San Jose in 2018 and 2019.

Frontier will add five daily nonstop routes this summer in two parts. Service to Denver and San Diego begin on July 22nd. Service to Las Vegas, Los Angeles (LAX), and Phoenix begin on August 13th. It also looks like they have a code-sharing agreement with Volaris for flights to Guadalajara, Mexico.

I'm happy with any addition of flights to San Jose, but all five of these routes already exist at SJC. Actually, all of them have not one but at least 2-4 other airlines flying those routes. Competition does means lower prices and more departure/arrival time options. Also, Frontier is an ultra-low cost carrier like Spirit Airlines, so their prices are already low to begin with. They even have some flights as low as $19 to promote the launch of the new San Jose service.

If they are successful with their initial offering, hopefully they will bestow some new nonstop routes as well.

Six-story office building to be replaced with townhomes

Over 100 homes could replace an office building in North San Jose, but there is a twist. The proposed project at 2107 North First St. would include 105 townhomes right next to the headquarters of PayPal and several other tech companies in the golden triangle of North San Jose. It has easy access to VTA Light Rail and in general is in a prime location.

Ready for the twist? In order to make room for those townhomes, a perfectly good 6-story office building would be torn down. While I understand the need to convert more office space to housing in order to balance supply and demand of each real estate use, this seems like a step backwards. Silicon Valley townhomes are typically three stories and in some rare cases four stories. 

If they are tearing down a whole office building, why not go with high-density housing? This site could easily support high-rises taller than Downtown San Jose. Townhomes do not seem like the best use for this land.

Source: The Mercury News