Art Boutiki is streaming live concerts

Art Boutiki is a comic book publisher, store, cafe, and music venue for up-and-coming artists. They are the type of local treasure that would be impacted the most by COVID. However, they are making the most of a bad situation are are livestreaming concerts almost every Wednesday and Saturday. It's a great way to support the local arts scene and many of the concerts are free.

While going through there events I also came across Dine and Draw and Drink and Draw in-person events. For these you listen to music on the outdoor patio, grab some wine or brews, and draw. It is a comic book publisher after all.

I used to love visiting Art Boutiki as part of South First Fridays and was sad when they had to shut down and move to Midtown (44 Race Street). While I haven't visited the new venue yet, it looks like they have kept all of the soul and character of their previous location and may have even taken things up a notch!

For their full list of events, head over here.

Hat tip to Ryan Mann for sending this in.

Intersections of San Jose

Peter Gorman has created an interesting mashup of art and transportation. He designs minimalist maps that were inspired by a one-year, 11,000-mile, solo bicycle trip around the United States. As part of that he spent about a month exploring the Bay Area and turned some of our most popular intersections into the contemporary interpretations below. It's a neat project and you can view the high resolution image and accompanying comments over here.

Market Park could bring thousands of homes and an office compound to North San Jose

A massive transit village has been proposed for the San Jose Flea Market right next to our new BART station. This is already the site of our largest project that is currently under construction. How massive you ask? The developers are looking to build 3,450 residential units and 3.4 MILLION square feet of commercial space. To put that in perspective that is roughly half of all the office space the exists in Downtown San Jose today.

The commercial component would be spread across seven buildings and three parking structures. The residential piece could utilize high-rises as tall as 200 feet, would would be very noticeable for the area. Other nearby amenities would include a plaza, pop-up retail space, an urban garden, a 1.4-acre rec area, tennis course, and a mini baseball field.

The bad news is that the Flea Market would be demolished to make way for the 61.5-acre project. There would be 150,000 SQFT of ground-floor retail and restaurants in the transit village, but it would not quite make up for losing a San Jose icon. However, given the vast increase in jobs, tax dollars, and density near transit--this project should be an easy approval by the city.

Source: SVBJ

Latest Miro Towers photos

Gillynova from the San Jose Development Forum has posted a few photos of Miro, which will feature San Jose's two tallest towers when construction is complete across from City Hall sometime next year. The project appears to be coming along nicely despite all of the COVID restrictions.

Breaking News: indoor dining resumes today at San Jose restaurants!

Yesterday we officially went from a Covid tier status of red to orange, which means indoor dining is coming back! The scale goes from purple, to red, to orange, and finally to yellow which has the fewest restrictions. Technically we could have resumed indoor dining in red status but Santa Clara County has chosen to enforce stricter rules than what California mandates.

Restaurants will be able to open their indoor dining rooms again effective immediately. However, they will be limited to 25% of their maximum capacity or 100 guests, whichever number is lower. A few other restrictions may be lifted as well on religious gatherings and movie theaters.

Slowly we're headed back toward some level of normalcy.

Source: SVBJ

Google unveils more of its plans for Downtown San Jose

Last week, Google released additional renders and details about their plan for Downtown San Jose. The project is one of the largest and most ambitious in the Bay Area's history. It would involve 7.3 million SQFT of office space, 4,000 new homes, half a million SQFT of retail and art space, 15 acres of parks and open space, and zero net CO2 emissions.

One of the most exciting components is that 65% of the campus will be accessible to the public. Instead of being a fortress that only Googlers can access, many of the amenities will be open for everyone to enjoy, including those 15 acres of new parks and open space.

The scale is unlike anything we have ever seen. Google is planning to build 30 new buildings! Eventually it could support up to 25,000 employees. You can get an idea below of what this might look like below. If you have the time, it's worth watching the full 40 minute video that Google put together to showcase the latest version of the project (also below).

Source: Engadget

San Jose metro is still the best for tech

Once again, San Jose is the top metro in the United States for tech productivity. In 2019 San Jose brought in $30 billion more than the runner up, San Francisco. 

This statistic is even more impressive considering we now only have the 5th highest count of tech workers. New York, LA, Washington, and the San Francisco metros all have between double and quadruple our population and in the case of New York nearly double the number of tech workers. Despite this, we still have a greater economic output in the tech industry. The death of Silicon Valley has been severely exaggerated.

Source: SVBJ

3Below planning to screen movies on the roof!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. After over 6 months without being able to open their doors, Downtown San Jose's last remaining movie theater is going to show movies on top of the parking structure that 3Below calls home.

The initial batch of movies will focus on social justice (such as Moonlight, Selma, MILK, To Be Takei, RBG, etc.). Several of the films will also have a live talk related to the movie ahead of each show and there will be a different theme every night.  On a warm night, this sounds like a fun and unique thing to do.

Screenings will cost $25 and come with a $10 voucher for food. The first screening is this Thursday, October 8th. You can see the whole schedule over here.

Source: San Jose Inside