Fountain Restaurant at Signia by Hilton Hosts Thanksgiving Feast in Downtown San Jose

Families looking for a holiday meal without the full kitchen production can head to Fountain Restaurant inside Signia by Hilton San Jose for a Thanksgiving buffet on November 26. The hotel at 170 South Market Street is offering a spread that mixes classic holiday dishes with California ingredients. Adults pay $125, children ages 5–12 pay $62.50, and children under 5 dine free. Prices exclude tax, gratuity, and alcoholic beverages.

The buffet centers on citrus-brined roasted turkey served with California citrus-cranberry confit and herb and fennel stuffing. Slow-roasted bone-in prime rib arrives with Yorkshire pudding. Other savory options include pumpkin gnocchi with turkey sausage in a creamy pumpkin sauce, plus chef stations for sushi, sashimi, and a chilled seafood bar. A farmer’s market table holds artisanal salads, grilled vegetables, cheeses, and charcuterie. Desserts feature an assortment of holiday pies, cherry jubilee, bananas foster, and a chocolate fountain with fruits and treats.

Seatings run from 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The hotel is also offering a special valet parking rate of $15 for the first three hours, then $2 per additional hour. Reservations are available through OpenTable.

The restaurant sits in the heart of Downtown San Jose, across from Plaza de San Jose and within walking distance of the San Jose Convention Center.

Historic South First Street Property Set for Multi-Phase Food and Drink Revival

Residents who remember the old Benjamin’s Saloon or later Camino Brewing Co. can watch the site at 702 and 718 S. First Street take on a new life. Jim Salata, president of San Jose-based Garden City Construction and Buccaneer Demolition, is converting the shuttered taproom and the neighboring historic building into a multi-phase food, drink, and events destination. He has already secured a Type 75 on-sale general brewpub license for the future Car Bar Brewery Restaurant space.

Salata envisions a brewpub-style operation centered on automotive memorabilia and artifacts tied to San Jose’s agricultural past. The space already holds a 10-barrel brewhouse. His company is handling kitchen refurbishments and upgrades to the front bar. “We're trying to get it to a point where we can bring in an operator and have a viable business,” Salata said. He hopes phase one, the brewery, will be close to done by the end of January. Camino Brewing closed in April 2024 after citing inflation and a slow recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The next phase completes Benjamin’s Gardens, a shared outdoor space behind a newly completed front wall. Regular operations there will need the kitchen finished. A later phase restores the two-story building at 702 S. First Street into Benjamin’s Saloon, with potential for a full kitchen in the garage. The second floor will feature a vintage brothel-style design with red velvet wallpaper and brass fixtures. The building dates to 1884 and originally housed Benjamin’s Saloon until Prohibition. Other businesses followed before Faber’s Cyclery opened in 1923. Salata and his wife, Suzanne, bought the structure in 2013 after a fire damaged the then-129-year-old property. “That's when we rebuilt it with reclaimed materials,” Salata said. “It's quite a story of the materials that we found and how it all transpired. It's a story in itself.”

Memorabilia collected from local families, farms, and businesses will appear throughout the property, including a loaned collection of Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles for display inside the future saloon. A roughly 12,000-square-foot parking lot near Second and Margaret streets holds space for about 30 vehicles. Salata said the project could split into three components: the Car Bar Brewery Restaurant, Benjamin’s Saloon, and a shared garden/event space, with separate operators or investors potentially involved in different portions.

The site sits in the SoFA district along South First Street. Once operators come on board, the phased approach could return a longtime neighborhood address to active use for dining, drinks, and gatherings.

Source: SVBJ

Taimseed Clinic to Open in Long-Vacant Downtown San Jose Storefront

Residents and workers near San Pedro Square will gain a new option for routine medical care when Taimseed opens its first South Bay location on December 20. The clinic is taking the 2,117-square-foot ground-floor space at 28 N. Almaden Avenue inside the Modera San Pedro Square apartments. The site had remained empty for years after Carbon Health closed its urgent care clinic there, well before the company shuttered other San Jose locations in February.

Taimseed plans to offer primary and preventive care along with sleep, menopause, and fertility services. The layout already includes a lobby, patient rooms, a conference room, a break room, and a lab, according to Bobby Facchino, the broker who represented the landlord. Facchino noted that the location sits one street over from the busier San Pedro Square corridor of restaurants and bars, which limited foot traffic and made leasing more difficult. Financial incentives ultimately helped draw the clinic operator to the space.

“It's a good balance,” Facchino said. “There's already a lot of places to eat and do stuff, so I think to have this as well adds to it.” An adjacent storefront in the same building has stayed vacant since construction finished. The new clinic sits a short walk from San Pedro Square Market and the broader dining scene that has grown along that stretch of Downtown San Jose.

The arrival adds a health service to a mixed-use building that already houses apartments above street-level retail. Opening just before the holidays gives nearby residents a local option for check-ups and specialized visits without traveling farther into the city or suburbs. Details on exact services and hours should appear on the operator’s site as the December date approaches.

Source: SVBJ

Downtown San Jose Keeps Street Meter Rates Steady While Garage Fees Rise

Anyone heading to Downtown San Jose for dinner, a show, or late work will notice a shift in how the city prices its public parking. In late September the City Council voted 7-3 to drop plans that would have raised street meter rates and extended enforcement until 9 p.m. Instead, hourly rates in city garages moved from $4 to $5 after the first 90 minutes free, effective in October. Special-event garage rates now range from $15 to $35, and eligibility for discounted monthly permits expanded so more downtown employees qualify.

The decision followed months of pushback from business owners, service workers, and patrons who argued that higher street fees and evening meters would slow the area’s recovery. Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, who represents the district, put forward the alternative that ultimately passed after earlier versions deadlocked. Street meters stay at $2 per hour with enforcement ending at 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The first 90 minutes remain free in the major garages, including the Convention Center garage on non-event days.

The compromise left the parking fund short of the revenue already built into the current budget. City staff had transferred $1.2 million from the parking fund to the general fund to help close a larger deficit, and deferring the street-meter increases pushes that shortfall into next year’s budget cycle. Officials directed further analysis of parking utilization, revenue, and infrastructure needs, including structural work and security upgrades at several downtown garages.

Downtown businesses that spoke at the meeting largely welcomed the outcome on meters while noting that garage increases still raise costs for some visitors and employees. Late-night workers raised concerns about walking to garages after the Groundwerx ambassador program ends for the night. The vote occurred against a backdrop of improving hotel and event activity in the core, with the council balancing those gains against ongoing budget pressure.

Drivers who park on the street for shorter visits continue under the existing meter rules. Those who stay longer or attend events will see the new garage rates when they exit. The parking board and staff are expected to return with longer-term recommendations as the city evaluates how the current setup performs through the rest of the fiscal year.

Source: The Mercury News

Fox Tale Fermentation Project Hosts Third Annual Downtown Pumpkin Patch

Neighbors and visitors looking for a low-key fall outing in Downtown San Jose can stop by Fox Tale Fermentation Project today for the third annual Downtown Pumpkin Patch. The small brewery and restaurant at 30 East Santa Clara Street, Suite 120, will set up pumpkins from The Pumpkin Patch SLO outside the shop for purchase and tasting. The lineup includes pumpkin specials, pumpkin drinks, pumpkin ferments, and coloring pages for kids.

Fox Tale opened in 2022 in the heart of Downtown San Jose and focuses on small-batch beers, house-made kombucha, fermented mocktails, and plant-based dishes built around local and fermented ingredients. Owners Wendy Neff and Felipe Bravo run the place as a neighborhood gathering spot that has hosted open mics, poetry nights, and other community events. The space sits near Fountain Alley, where several independent businesses have opened in recent years.

The pumpkin event continues a pattern of seasonal activations the owners have used to draw people onto Santa Clara Street. Past versions of the patch paired the gourds with fall menu items and special releases. This year’s version keeps the same outdoor setup on the sidewalk between First and Second Streets while adding the coloring pages for younger visitors.

The restaurant normally opens at noon Wednesday through Sunday and closes Mondays and Tuesdays. The pumpkin patch itself is scheduled for today, with the usual food and drink service running alongside the outdoor display. Anyone interested in the current menu or hours can check the shop’s site or Instagram for the latest details.

For more information, visit foxtalefermentationproject.com or follow @foxtalefermentationproject.

San Jose Wishlist - Halloween in the Park (Part XVIII)

As Halloween approaches, it is time to resurrect one of my favorite wishlist items for San Jose: "Halloween in the Park."

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. It's the one day where you get to interact with your neighbors and the wider community. The level of creativity in decorations and costumes is also the most eclectic and interesting out of all the holidays for me--whether that's for trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, or work events.

In October it's tradition for The San Jose Blog have a wish-list post for Halloween in the Park. The idea is to build on the momentum that Christmas in the Park brings to San Jose each year and create something of similar scale for the month of October. A lot of the infrastructure such as wiring, lighting, and booths might even be able to be shared between the events. The goal would be to make Downtown San Jose the epicenter of October Halloween experiences, much as it is today with Christmas in the Park.

Below you will find brainstorming ideas we have collected for this concept so far over the years. Please have a look and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments or on X. Thanks!

---

The largest draw to Downtown San Jose for many years now has been Christmas in the Park. It has continued to grow year after year and brings in visitors from all over the Bay Area. It's economic impact is substantial and helps keep many Downtown businesses and restaurants alive.

What would you think about a similar event for Halloween? Picture Downtown lit up in orange and purple with elaborate Halloween displays assembled by local artists. Perhaps infrastructure could even be shared with Christmas in the Park (e.g. retail booths). A strong event in October would help maintain traffic between the summer months and Christmas in the Park. Here are the ideas we have so far:

• Animated Halloween Displays
• Created by local artists
• Analogous to the Christmas displays that attract many families during Christmas in the Park (almost half a million visitors)
• Family friendly so that everyone can enjoy it (PG/PG13, perhaps around the same level as Great America's Halloween decorations)
• Halloween Lighting
• Orange, purple, and green LED lighting on trees
• May be possible to use programmable LED lighting that can go from Halloween colors to Christmas colors with the push of a button, allowing the lights to stay up for Christmas in the Park as well and reducing setup/take-down costs.
• Halloween Food
• Booths with candied apples, chocolates, candy, pumpkin seeds, etc.
• Food trucks
• Trick-or-treating station - a free piece of candy to anyone wearing a costume any day in October (could also be used to hand out promotional flyers for Downtown events/businesses/resources)
• Retail Booths selling Halloween items, for example:
• Artwork (paintings, glass pumpkins, etc.)
• Home decor/crafts like candles
• Light-up hats/necklaces/bracelets
• Costumes
• Zombie/Halloween make-up station 
• Halloween-themed Carnival Games
• Pirates of Emerson and Candlelighters (Fremont) do a good job of providing family-friendly games themed around Halloween
• A handful of children's rides could also be added to the Paseo and reused for Christmas in the Park
• Interactive Art
• Subzero-style, but with a Halloween spin.
• Halloween-themed video game kiosks and/or arcades
• Pumpkins
• Instead of the sponsored Christmas trees in Christmas in the Park, how about decorated Pumpkins (can even be Styrofoam so there is no mess/decay)?
• Pumpkin carving station for families. 
• Pumpkin carving contest.
• Costumed Entertainers
• Walking around the area, not necessarily scaring people but adding to the ambiance and providing photo opportunities for families
• Haunts / Mazes
• Would be ideal if these were nearby, perhaps in vacant retails spaces, surface parking lots, the San Jose Convention Center tent, or at SJSU.
• Could partners with one of the established San Jose haunt providers such as the Winchester Mystery House or The Bernal SCREAM.
• Potential Events
• Zombie Crawl / 5k Run
• Día De Los Muertos Events (already quite a few today)
• Halloween/Día De Los Muertos Bike Party
• Horror Movie Trivia Contest
• Weekly horror movie screening (perhaps in the Circle of Palms area?)
• Costume Ball
• Pet costume contests and pet-friendly events

Inspirations:

• Winchester Mystery House Unhinged
• Candle Lighters
• Pirates of Emerson
• The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze (photos below)

Diwali Carnival Returns to the Plaza on October 24

The Association of Indo Americans will bring San Jose Diwali Carnival back to Plaza de César Chávez on Saturday, October 24. City permit hours run 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eventbrite lists the window as 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., with a 2 p.m. start in the description. The plaza sits at 1 Paseo de San Antonio in Downtown San Jose. AIA’s vendor calendar puts expected turnout above 7,500. Last October’s first downtown carnival drew a much larger crowd than the permit number suggested. Entry is listed as free.

Diwali, the Festival of Lights, lands in late October this year. The carnival format that worked in 2025 returns this year: food courts, jewelry and fashion booths, kids’ activities, henna, ritual space, and a stage. AIA’s food list from the last plaza night included chai, jalebi, chaat, dosa, and biryani. A separate AIA show, Dussehra Diwali Dhamaka, is set for October 17 at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.

California recognized Diwali as a state holiday through Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s bill. The plaza already hosts Music in the Park, Christmas in the Park buildup, and half the city’s civic photo ops. Putting lamps and a sound system there for one Saturday is how a tech city shows it can hold a religious festival without moving it to the suburbs. RSVP and updates live on AIA’s site below.

Register at https://www.aiaevents.org/san-jose-diwali-carnival

Little Italy Turns Ten on Sharks Way

Little Italy San Jose will mark ten years of its street festival on Sunday, October 4, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Little Italy Way and Sharks Way, a few blocks from SAP Center in Downtown San Jose. Organizers at the Little Italy San Jose Foundation expect 20,000 to 25,000 people. The district itself dates to 2016--the festival grew into one of Northern California’s larger Italian days, with food stalls, Cal-Italia wine, crafts, museum tours, a kids’ train, and a car row that now ranks among the bigger Italian-marque displays in the country. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and Pagani usually show up.

Opening ceremonies start at 11:30 a.m. Grammy-winning accordionist Cory Pesaturo takes 12:15. New York Italian-American jazz singer Vanessa Racci follows at 1:15, then a duo set with Pesaturo at 1:45. Tenor Pasquale Esposito headlines at 3:15 for about 90 minutes. The Anthony Nino Lane Band closes from 5:30. New murals honoring Italian-American work in the valley are scheduled for dedication over the weekend. Proceeds feed the Cultural Center and Museum on the same block.

Today is the paid warm-up: a four-course dinner with wine and a concert by Racci and Pesaturo at the Museum Piazza and Italian Cellar Speakeasy, $75 a head. That is the only ticketed piece.

Festival page and dinner tickets: https://www.littleitalysj.com/little-italy-san-jose-festival

A $500,000 Green Room Puts Levitt Closer to St. James Park

Aart de Geus, the former Synopsys CEO who still plays guitar in a blues band, put $500,000 toward a permanent Levitt Pavilion stage in St. James Park. The gift carries naming rights. He assigned them to the green room and put Chris Wilder’s name on the door. Wilder, former executive director of the Valley Health Foundation and a onetime San Jose Jazz board chair, survived a massive stroke in 2021. The two met when Wilder invited de Geus to a CEO jam at Jazz Summer Fest and later formed Legally Blue, Wilder on bass, de Geus on guitar.

Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose have staged free summer shows in the park for years while chasing a fixed venue. Construction is slated to start next summer, with Levitt Foundation money layered on top of local gifts. The finished pavilion is supposed to host 40 to 50 free concerts a year plus rentals for schools, nonprofits, and civic groups. The group’s own math puts $14.3 million a year into the Downtown San Jose economy and 50 regional acts on the payroll. Suzanne St. John Crane, the organization’s director of strategy, called de Geus a useful example of a tech principal writing a check instead of waiting for someone else.

De Geus has said Silicon Valley still under-funds the arts relative to the money and the number of engineers who moonlight as musicians. The last pop-up of the 2026 season packed the lawn for Peach Tree Rascals on September 6. The next step is steel in the park, not another season of rented risers.

Give and follow the build at https://www.levittsanjose.org.

Source: SiliconValley.com

SAP Center Puts the Letters Back Up as Phase One Wraps

The SAP Center letters are back on the south entrance, hung a little higher to clear a new digital display and the footprint of an expanded Sharks team store. That store is the headline of Phase One of the Teal Reimagination, a multi-year overhaul budgeted at about $425 million. Phase One itself cost just under $30 million and is scheduled to finish this fall.

Opening night is October 1 against the Florida Panthers. Fans walking in that week will find a new bar with eight points of sale at the top of the south-side escalators, a guest-experience kiosk shifted nearby, and Section 216 turned into a walk-through grab-and-go market with self-checkout. The team store above the south doors is slated for mid-November and will run about three times the size of the current shop. Jon Gustafson, the Sharks’ senior vice president, told the Silicon Valley Business Journal the retail upgrade is the biggest visible change of this first slice.

Phase Two starts in January 2027 with locker rooms and a premium lounge. After the 2026-27 season ends, the building is set to go dark for concerts through summer 2027 so the heavy structural work can happen without a mid-week show in the way. That phase is meant to be ready for the 2027-28 opener. Later chapters call for a reseated lower bowl that could add about 100 seats, more food-and-beverage points, restrooms, premium rooms, and new entries. About 90 percent of Sharks staff will move later this year to 450 W. Santa Clara Street so current arena offices can become home and visitor locker space.

Five or six phases remain on the table depending on costs. Perkins&Will designed the work. Renderings and updates live at https://www.tealreimagination.com. Tickets for October 1 are available at https://www.nhl.com/sharks.

Source: SVBJ

Council Takes Up a Five-Year Parking Hike on Tuesday

City Council will hear a revised downtown parking plan on Tuesday, September 29. Downtown Parking Board Vice Chair Tamiko Rast sent an open letter last week asking the council to pause. The Department of Transportation’s five-year ladder would raise garage hourly rates by $1 in year one and special-event garage rates by $3. Year two would add $1 an hour to about 1,600 core meters now at $2. Year three would keep those meters running until 9 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. Year four would add another $2 to event rates. Year five would lift every city meter by $1. The first 90 minutes in city garages, including the Convention Center Garage, would stay free. Sundays would stay free.

The Parking Fund takes in about $15 million a year. The current budget already pulled $1.2 million from that fund into the general fund to help cover a deficit north of $26 million. Staff project the full rate package, once it lands in 2030, would add about $4 million a year. Last fiscal year the fund also sent $972,000 to items outside Transportation, including fireworks, Downtown Ice upgrades, and business-development programs. Rast’s complaint is that the city is asking drivers to pay more while garages still have bad lighting, broken elevators, thin security, and dirty floors, and while the Parking Board has seen late packets and canceled meetings.

The San Jose Downtown Association made the same point in June, when the first version of the hike was yanked off the consent calendar after restaurant and bar owners filled the chambers. Raising the price of a dinner-and-show night without fixing the garage that night ends in is a tax on the recovery downtown has been trying to buy. Staff argue San Jose’s $2 meter is still cheap next to Oakland and San Francisco, and that evening demand now exists. Both can be true. The vote on Tuesday is whether the extra dollar goes into concrete and cameras first, or into the hole in the general fund.

City notice: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/7535/16

Source: San Jose Spotlight

SoFA Street Fair Takes Over First Street on Sunday

SoFA Street Fair Fall 26 lands Sunday, September 27, from 2 p.m. to about 7:30 p.m. across South First Street and the side streets that make up the SoFA District in Downtown San Jose. The posted grid puts bands, vendors, skate demos, burlesque, and independent wrestling on eight stages at once.

Pobladores Stage and Pobladores Dos sit at 501 South First. Silver Truck Stage is at 454 South First. Project X is at 22 East San Salvador. Haberdasher, 43 West San Salvador, runs rotating burlesque sets from 4 p.m. onward. UGWA Stage at 25 East William hosts the wrestling card, including a title match between Dave Dyra and Journey Fatu at 7. SoFA Market at 387 South First keeps the vendor row. Caravan Stage at 50 West San Salvador closes the night with Sad Boy Sinister at 7:30, while Philthy Dronez Y La Brigada De La Cumbia takes Pobladores at the same time. Gunderson High School Concert Band opens Silver Truck at 2. Skatepops and El Guapo split Project X in the mid-afternoon.

The fair shares the weekend with ILLO Mart two blocks west inside South Hall. Anyone already downtown for prints can walk east and catch a set without a second parking hunt. Start at First and San Salvador and move with the sound. The schedule lives at https://sofafall26.sched.com/

ILLO Mart Packs South Hall With 250-Plus Illustrators This Weekend

San José Made will run the 2nd annual ILLO Mart on Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days inside South Hall at 435 South Market Street in Downtown San Jose. Admission is free. Last year’s first edition proved the city could fill a hall with working illustrators. This year’s floor holds more than 250 booths. Vendor slots sold out. The first 1,000 people through the door each day get an event-only 4-by-6 notepad drawn by @poxei.

The back of the hall is set up for people who want to make something instead of only buying prints. Figure drawing runs all day, first come first served, clothed models, short and long poses. Charcoal and paper are on loan while they last. Jacquelin De Leon leads a $10 digital portrait class at 12:30 both days and a $20 watercolor class at 2:30. Malisa Suchanya’s wooden-mushroom painting slots cycle through the afternoon. Sunday only, Elda The of Thousand Skies teaches 4-by-6 rubber-stamp carving for $20, noon to 2 p.m. and 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., age 12 and up. Four artists run a stamp rally; spend $8 at their tables and collect a set of riso prints at booth E406 while supplies last.

South Hall sits next to the Convention Center garage. Street parking is free on Sunday and the VTA light rail and buses stop within two blocks. No outside food or drink.

Details and workshop reservations: https://www.sanjosemade.com/pages/illo-mart-2026

San Jose Reports a Sharp Drop in Homelessness

City Hall released a new estimate this week that the unsheltered population fell about 32 percent in 18 months, from 5,477 people in February 2025 to 3,702 in August 2026. Mayor Matt Mahan tied the change to encampment cleanups, no-re-encampment zones, and a fast buildout of interim rooms: motels, tiny homes, and other emergency beds. ABC7 heard from some residents near Arena Green and the SAP Center who said they now see fewer people living outdoors, even as they added that the crisis has not left the city.

The numbers come from UrbanLogiq, a third-party model that folds in 15 data streams rather than waiting for the federal Point-in-Time count every two years. Those streams include outreach logs, police and fire calls, transportation counts of lived-in vehicles, and Homeless Management Information System records. Officials say the same model counted about 1,500 more unsheltered people than the January 2025 PIT figure of 3,959, which is why they treat the older snapshot as an undercount. The plan is to refresh the estimate every quarter so programs can shift instead of guessing for two years at a stretch.

Housing staff also pointed to capacity that did not exist a short while ago. Reports this week put newly created interim units around 1,000, while a September 15 council briefing described a wider portfolio of roughly 1,820 units and more than 2,200 beds across 22 sites. Lived-in vehicles tracked by the city fell from 960 in fall 2024 to 385 by spring 2026. Resident surveys moved in the same direction: the share of people who named homelessness as the single biggest thing San Jose should change dropped from a peak of 40 percent to 20 percent.

Skeptics asked whether the street feels that different. Advocate Shaunn Cartwright told ABC7 the 32 percent cut does not match what she sees day to day and noted that unhoused deaths last year hit 160, with 2026 on a similar pace. The Mercury News reported that Santa Clara County has not independently reviewed the UrbanLogiq model. The next official PIT count is not due until early 2027, so federal funders may still lean on the older method. City leaders themselves said the people still outside are often the hardest to reach, with addiction and mental health needs that interim beds alone will not settle.

A smaller outdoor population would matter for parks, storefronts, and the everyday walk through Downtown San Jose. It would also matter for the thousands who moved inside if those rooms stay funded and lead somewhere more permanent. The next quarterly run of the model will show whether the line keeps falling or levels off.

Source: ABC News

Candlelit Evening of Ennio Morricone Scores Arrives at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph

The unforgettable film music of Ennio Morricone will fill the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in Downtown San Jose on Thursday, October 29, when a candlelit piano and strings program makes its California premiere. Five musicians—a string quartet and pianist—will perform a 70-minute selection of the composer’s most iconic scores beneath the basilica’s great dome, with doors opening at 7:00 p.m. and the concert beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Listeners can expect themes that have stayed with audiences long after the credits rolled, including the haunting whistle and guitar of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the soaring Ecstasy of Gold, the tender melodies from Cinema Paradiso, Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission, and selections from Once Upon a Time in America, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Untouchables, and more. The intimate arrangement lets every phrase and silence register clearly inside the resonant space.

Candlelight, a specially designed lighting installation, and the basilica’s historic architecture will frame the music. The building, whose parish roots reach back to 1803 and whose present structure dates to 1877, offers stained-glass windows, a rare 1886 Odell organ, and acoustics that give the scores an added luminous quality. The production, which has already toured European cathedrals and concert halls, arrives in San Jose as a quiet, focused alternative to larger orchestral evenings.

Tickets start at $45 and are available through Eventbrite. Public parking sits in nearby Downtown garages, and early arrival is recommended. This single evening offers a chance to experience cinema’s most memorable melodies in one of the city’s most striking sacred spaces.

Tickets and further details are available on Eventbrite.

XL Bar Files In at the Old Renegades Address on Taylor Street

A tavern-style spot called XL Bar is slated for the 1,440-square-foot room at 501 W. Taylor St., the address Renegades occupied until May. California ABC records list Erika Dominguez as the applicant for a Type 48 on-sale liquor license. A window permit still shows the space is not yet licensed to pour. Management did not comment when reporters called.

The building sits across from San Jose Market Center, the busy cluster anchored by Target, Marshalls, Sprouts and Trader Joe’s, a short hop from Downtown San Jose’s core. Foot traffic from grocery runs and evening errands could feed a neighborhood tavern if the license clears and the doors open.

Renegades closed May 8 after the death of longtime owner Luis Sarmiento. Staff and regulars tried to keep the room going. A May post from the bar’s account said the landlords had chosen a different tenant. Whether XL Bar’s operators had any role in that decision remains unclear. Renegades had served as one of San Jose’s last dedicated gay bars, a home for karaoke, drag nights and softball teams since the 1970s.

The city’s queer nightlife map is thinner than it once was. San Jose counted about 14 gay bars in earlier decades. Splash and Mac’s Club still operate on Post Street inside the Qmunity District. Those two rooms now carry more of the late-night weight for LGBTQ+ residents and visitors. Anyone who misses the Taylor Street circle can still find drag, dancing and a patio a few blocks closer to City Hall.

A new tavern next to a grocery center is ordinary city news until the license posts and the lights go on. What matters for San Jose is whether the block stays lively and whether the Qmunity District keeps getting the crowds it earned. Stop by Post Street in the meantime.

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal

The Circle of Palms Lost Its Palms. Downtown Still Owns the Ground.

Contractors cut down all 32 palm trees at the Circle of Palms Plaza on Aug. 20 and finished the job by the next afternoon. The ring sat between the San Jose Museum of Art, Signia by Hilton San Jose and 50 West. City arborists found 15 trees dead or dying and the rest in decline. Some leaned. Lab samples went out to identify the cause. Removal ran about $45,000 and skipped the usual notice period because falling trunks posed an immediate risk.

The palms themselves dated to late-1980s downtown redevelopment. The ground under them is older. California Historical Landmark No. 461 marks the site of the first State Capitol, where the legislature met from 1849 to 1851. A state seal still sits in the pavement. For decades the circle hosted CityDance, holiday lights and Downtown Ice, the outdoor rink that wrapped around those trunks every winter.

Poppy & Claro opened last year on the ground floor of 50 West and built its name around the plaza. Neighbors who work or eat there now look at an open disk of concrete instead of a green ring. District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos asked the city to pause, gather stakeholders and run a real public process before anyone plants the next idea. The San Jose Downtown Association called the empty plaza a chance to rethink what the space should do for people who live, work and visit the core.

That conversation belongs to anyone who has skated there in December, walked through after a museum show or grabbed lunch on the edge of the circle. New trees, different shade, a redesigned floor, or a layout that still holds an ice rink are all on the table once feedback starts. Tordillos hoped that work would begin before the year ends.

Downtown San Jose already proved it can turn a historic capitol site into a living room. The palms are gone. The landmark, the seal and the habit of gathering there remain. Readers who want a say should watch city and Downtown Association channels for the first workshop dates.

Additional information will come from the City of San Jose Transportation Department and the San Jose Downtown Association as the outreach calendar is set.

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal

Downtown Parking Lot Beside Hammer Theatre Gets a Final Yes for 168 Affordable Homes

City planning staff signed off September 2 on a seven-story building at 143 South Third Street that will replace a surface lot next to Hammer Theatre Center. Sobrato Organization owns the land. Pacific West Communities will build it. The approved plan calls for 168 apartments: 133 for low-income households, 33 for very-low-income households, and two market-rate manager units. In Santa Clara County this year that means roughly $113,700 for a single low-income renter and $71,950 for a very-low-income one, with higher caps for a family of four.

Five floors of housing will sit on a five-story garage, a block from the San Antonio light-rail station and a short walk from SJSU, restaurants, and the Paseo de San Antonio. Sobrato bought the parcel in 2010 with denser housing in mind. An earlier luxury-office idea never left the paper. This version uses Density Bonus Law and SB 330 streamlining, which is why the director-level hearing, not a long council fight, closed the file.

Neighbors at the hearing pushed back on Saturday construction starting at 7 a.m. The same voices asked for a living edge along the Paseo instead of a blank garage wall. Pacific West’s Lauren Alexander told the room the team is looking at artwork and a rotating gallery on that side. Groundbreaking has no public date yet. The developers want a two-year build if extended hours hold.

San Jose still has a state assignment north of 62,000 housing units to plan through 2031.

City planning agendas: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/planning-building-code-enforcement/planning-division

Source: The Mercury News

Pink Coolers on Wheels Already Cross Downtown. The 350-Pound Ones Want the Bike Lane.

Coco’s pink-and-red boxes have been rolling through Downtown San Jose since April, pausing at lights like any other pedestrian and dropping coded meals at stoops within about two miles. Serve Robotics joined later. Together they already feed Uber Eats and DoorDash orders from spots such as Punjab Cafe on East Santa Clara Street and Sixth Street Burger. Bobby Saini at Punjab now loads butter chicken and garlic naan into a compartment several times a night. The city never signed a formal contract with either firm. Staff waved the fleets through under older policies about fewer car trips and lower emissions, then called the stretch a learning period.

Council will likely vote this fall on actual rules: permits, insurance, $200 to $250 a year per robot, and the right to cap fleets or yank a permit if machines block curb ramps, bus zones, or bike lanes. Until then, the only speed cap on the sidewalk is an informal 5 mph, a number reporters have had to jog to match. Coco units weigh about 100 pounds empty. Serve’s weigh 161. DoorDash wants to put 350-pound Dot robots, roughly a tenth the size of a car, into bike lanes at speeds that can reach 20 mph. City staff decided those machines were too slow for car lanes. Cyclists get the experiment instead.

Disability advocates have already named the obvious collision: a stalled cooler on a curb cut, a walker forced into the street. Sheri Burns, formerly of the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center, also called grocery-by-robot a possible game changer for people who cannot easily leave home, and she praised Coco’s BlindSquare mapping of cracked sidewalks. At La Victoria Taqueria, staff found one unit flipped on its back. Arturo Litvin watched his Sixth Street Burger order arrive by robot, then noticed Uber Eats refunded the tip. Human couriers still do the bulk of the work. The companies will not say how many of those shifts they expect to erase.

San Francisco locked robots down in 2017 before they spread. Fremont is letting DoorDash run Dots under an encroachment permit that expires in March, with a 16 mph cap and a $1 million insurance floor. San Jose chose the opposite sequence: sidewalks first, ordinance later. Coco’s government lead says a frozen bot on a sidewalk would be rare and short-lived, and field techs are supposed to arrive within 30 minutes. Guadalupe River Trail stays off limits. Willow Glen is already on Coco’s near-term map as the next expansion opportunity.

Source: The Mercury News

A Parking Lot Beside Hammer Theatre Moves Toward 168 Affordable Homes

Planning Director Christopher Burton is scheduled to hear a seven-story affordable project on September 3 that would replace a 1.3-acre surface lot between South Second and South Third streets, just south of East San Fernando. The Sobrato Organization owns the asphalt. Pacific West Communities would build. AO drew the plans. The site sits next to San Jose State’s Hammer Theatre Center and across from the San Antonio light-rail stop, which is the whole point of putting housing here instead of another decade of empty spaces after the last show lets out.

Staff have recommended approval. Under the state’s Density Bonus Law the current count is 168 apartments: 33 reserved for very-low-income households, 133 for low-income households, and two market-rate manager units. Earlier filings this spring described 173 homes with a slightly different mix, including extremely-low-income apartments. Numbers often shift as drawings harden. What has not shifted is the claim that nearly every door would be deed-restricted. Sobrato held this lot since about 2010 and once floated a 24-story, 393-unit market tower that never left the page. The new version is shorter, cheaper to finance, and aimed at people who already work or study within walking distance of Paseo de San Antonio.

San Jose’s state housing assignment for 2023 through 2031 is 62,200 units. Council spent recent weeks arguing about whether denser housing should spread into more neighborhoods. This parcel does not need that debate. It already sits in the core, next to a campus, a theater, restaurants, and a train. Residents would not need a car to reach a job on Santa Clara Street or a class on campus. They would need the project to survive financing after the director’s stamp.

Pacific West has become a regular partner on below-market work around Northern California. Sobrato, long an office landlord, has been steering more of its land toward housing. Neither fact guarantees a groundbreaking. An approval on September 3 would still leave tax credits, construction costs, and a construction schedule. The useful test for Downtown San Jose is whether a parking lot that has sat idle beside a university theater finally turns into addresses instead of another rendering.

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal