San Jose Crane Watch is up to 97 major projects

The Silicon Valley Business Journal has a great development map which you can access here. There are now over 97 major development projects, most of which are centered around Downtown San Jose. These include office, residential, hotel, health car, education, retail, and mixed-use projects that were either proposed or are actively under construction. The project has to be at least 100,000 SQFT in size to make it to the map (that means the pipelines has well over 10 million SQFT of projects).

Some of the latest additions include a 19-story, 220 room hotel tower on Santa Clara Street and a 500,000 SQFT mixed use project in North San Jose. Learn more and check out the map using the source link below.

Source: SVBJ

Downtown San Jose Scavenger hunt template

The San Jose Economy Blog has a guest post by a Cohesity employee that created a team-building scavenger hunt. I love this idea. It's a great way to get local employees more familiar with Downtown--and there are many hidden treasures to discover in the area. Below was their list that you can use as a starting point for your own scavenger hunt. Check out the full post with more details over here.

Items to find:

• Life-sized board game
• Bear that belongs in the snow
• Wolf on top of a street
• Sensing WATER installation
• Giant tank full of sharks
• Little piece of Italy
• Barbershop inside of a square
• Find a Burning Man female sculpture that inspires peace
• Sculpture worth 200,000 coins
• Permanent iron hat
• Giant dome that is in the center of a hall
• Statue with two track runners
• Silver girl walking a silver dog
• Red tree with no leaves
• Amusement park that opened in 1961
• Plant across the street from a cemetery – find the center circle

Good Deeds to Perform:

• Take a picture with a stranger and tell them to have a great day!
• Give a flower to a stranger.
• Throw a piece of trash from the street into a trashcan or dumpster.
• Help someone in need, a random act of kindness.

Google's Diridon plan is starting to come together

If Google ends up building their 8 million SQFT campus in Downtown San Jose, it will be one of the most transformative events even in San Jose history. They have already spent over $250 million assembling various parcels of land in anticipation for the urban campus. Eventually 15,000-20,000 Google employees could be working in San Jose.

Google has started laying out a vision for the 240-acre land surrounding Diridon where they would local the majority of their offices. The improvements would be accessible to the public and benefit the whole community. Google wants to develop four corridors that each have their own theme: Los Gatos Linear Park, Paseo San Fernando, Cultural & Innovation Walk, and the Social & Commercial Loop.

The Los Gatos Linear Park would connect the Guadalupe River to the Los Gatos Creek via a green "eco-walk" and Santa Clara Steet outside SAP would be turned into a commercial district with retail and restaurants. Paseo San Fernando would feature retail, art, and event space.

This sounds very interesting and exciting. The more developed the plan becomes, the more likely this project will come to fruition.

Source: SVBJ

Get More Done... Working with Virtual Assistants by SwagSam

SwagSam, Founder, of the podcast network WhatUp Silicon Valley just published his first book!

In the hustle that is Silicon Valley, we are all looking for an edge. We look at the latest trends and will try anything (within reason of course) to give ourselves a competitive edge. Always looking to increase productivity, increase bottom line … and in Silicon Valley to increase company culture!

If you can relate to this feeling that there just aren’t enough hours in a day then and want to reduce stress in your life; then SwagSam’s book “Success With Swag(ger)” is for you. In this book, SwagSam outlines just how he and his team at WhatUp Silicon Valley have used virtual assistants (VA’s)  to grow each of their respective businesses. It’s an actionable step-by-step guide to identifying what tasks that are wasting your time and guides you to hiring your first VA!

You can grab check out the book on Amazon by searching “SwagSam” or just clicking the link here.

WhatUp Silicon Valley is the podcast network on what’s trending in the South Bay for and by young professionals that live the Silicon Valley hustle.

SJCA Style & Culture with Nicholas Jimenez

Nicholas Jimenez is and artist that works for MACLA as a Program Assistant for their Digital Media and Culture (DMC) Studio. He's also studying Industrial Design at SJSU. He has a weekly vlog called SJCA Style & Culture that highlights a lot of great things happening in the area.

When asked why he started the show, Nicholas responded with:

"I want to invite people to see a first-hand account of what it's like to experience some of the festivals, meet some of the great people, and see the many styles and cultures in our area.  Also, as you may know, working within the visual and performance art scene we meet a lot of interesting people, organizations, and gain exclusive access to some awesome stuff and I want to share it all! People can expect to see interviews with local artists, designers, entrepreneurs, and fashionistas that are working on interesting projects that affect us all. As well as, local music videos, event highlights of local acts and performers at events near the South Bay, and San Francisco Bay. And also some vlogs about the day to day activities of the team behind it all."

To access the weekly show and learn more, click here!

Cinnaholic rolls out San Jose location

A rapidly growing vegan cinnamon roll bakery has officially opened Downtown at 115 East San Carlos. This is Cinnaholic's fifth location in California. Each gourmet cinnamon roll can be topped with one of 30+ frosting flavors and a selection of over 20 toppings. For more info on Cinnaholic, check out the press release below.

New location will soon grace taste buds across San Jose

SAN JOSE, Calif. – There is good news for San Jose residents with a sweet tooth.

Cinnaholic, the gourmet cinnamon roll bakery acclaimed for serving innovative, gourmet cinnamon roll creations, has announced that its San Jose location will open on April 27 at 115 East San Carlos Street. The San Jose bakery is the fifth in California.

The grand opening signifies meaningful and continued growth for the gourmet cinnamon roll chain. The new San Jose location joins the current locations in California, Texas, Georgia, Nevada and Florida. Cinnaholic gained national attention after the company was featured on ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank.” The brand was recently featured in Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the Top Eight Franchises that have appeared on “Shark Tank.” Cinnaholic began franchising in 2014 and currently has over 40 units in development, including Cleveland, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Florida, and Edmonton, Alberta.

“There is a tremendous amount of excitement to serve the award-winning cinnamon rolls to the people of San Jose,” said Xicayan Posadas, who has been in the food industry since he was young, helping his mother run her catering truck at a young age and then working as a bakery manager. Xicayan owns and operates the new bakery with his wife, Lizzeth. “Our delicious, vegan cinnamon rolls will fulfill a need for a healthier, sweet treat that locals have been asking for.”

A cinnamon roll experience unlike any other, customers can choose from a variety of Cinnaholic’s signature frosting flavors and toppings to create their very own, mouthwatering cinnamon roll experience. Customers can expect nothing less than the highest quality ingredients, as the vegan bakery franchise was founded upon a commitment that all ingredients must be animal-free and free of dairy, lactose, eggs and cholesterol.

“Xicayan and Lizzeth are the perfect team to grow the Cinnaholic brand in San Jose,” said Shannon Radke, co-founder of Cinnaholic. “Their experience in the food industry is outstanding, and they truly understand the Cinnaholic concept and business model.”

For more information on Cinnaholic, visit www.cinnaholic.com.

About Cinnaholic

Founded in 2009 in Berkeley, California, Cinnaholic is the only gourmet bakery that allows customers to completely customize cinnamon rolls with more than 30 frosting flavors and over 20 topping choices. Each Cinnaholic cinnamon roll is 100% vegan and free of dairy, lactose, eggs or cholesterol, allowing guests to enjoy their mouth-watering creations without worrying about certain dietary or allergy restrictions.

To learn more about Cinnaholic franchise opportunities, call (404) 844-8661. For more information about Cinnaholic bakeries, visit www.cinnaholic.com.

Wednesday Wishlist: Loops

It has been ages since doing a Wednesday Wishlist, and I can't think of a more timely one than this one. Transportation is constantly one of the top complaints of living in the San Jose area. We are plagued by levels of traffic that give even LA a run for it's money. We're spending billions on road improvements and public transit, but it does not seem like the net results will ever keep up with the increased demands of a growing population. We live in the innovation capital of the world, there has to be a better way.

Elon Musk has recently given a presentation on the first "Loop" tunnel, which is currently being built in the LA area (full video below) by The Boring Company. A loop is a lower-cost variant of the Hyperloop proposal a few years back. Stations 1-2 parking spaces wide would allow up to 16 people to enter a pod, which would then descend into a tunnel. The pod would then autonomously travel point-to-point to another station at up to 150 MPH. Rides are targeted to cost $1 per person, less than existing public transit stations.

Critical to making this concept successful is reducing the cost of tunneling by a factor of 10 from $1 billion per mile to $100 million per mile. This is possible by using autonomous boring machines with electric motors and batteries (surprisingly the same motors as the Tesla Model 3) that are faster and more efficient than existing machines. Most of the engineers working on the machines are from SpaceX--if anyone can figure it out, it'll be them. After all, they did figure out how to land rockets back on earth on a moving barge.

Given that we are at the precipice of next-generation transportation technology, San Jose should be doing everything possible to make sure we're one of the first cities to get access to Loops. Instead of investing in transit systems of the past, we should look to the future. Can you imagine connecting SJC, Diridon Station, and Downtown to every other part of San Jose within a 10min trip? Now's the time to start thinking bigger--or lower--for San Jose.

SJC is the fastest growing airport in the Bay Area

There is good reason why San Jose continues to get additional flight routes month after month. The airport has grown passenger traffic an astounding 18.5% year-over-year. It will only be a matter of time before SJC passes Oakland as the 2nd largest airport by passenger volume. In February, San Jose's year-over-year passenger growth was an even more impressive 20.8% while it was 11.5% at SFO and 5.3% at Oakland. That puts SJC and OAK neck-and-neck for 2nd place.

In March, international travel was up by 23% year-over-year. This is the most lucrative market for the airport and city, as international trips tend to bring the largest economic impact and taxes to the city. It also helps support San Jose companies while giving residents more travel options.

With a major $1 billion expansion in the works, the future looks bright!

Source: SVBJ