DSW Prepares Second San Jose Store at Almaden Plaza

Footwear retailer DSW will open a second location in San Jose at Almaden Plaza. The new store will occupy roughly 14,400 square feet previously held by a furniture retailer at the 5353 Almaden Expressway shopping center.

Almaden Plaza already anchors a mix of large tenants including T.J. Maxx, Sports Basement, and Hobby Lobby. Recent additions include TleafGreen Burmese Kitchen, with a Benihana restaurant also on the way. The center sits near residential neighborhoods and other retail destinations such as Oakridge Mall and Almaden Ranch Marketplace.

DSW currently operates one San Jose store on Stevens Creek Boulevard, more than six miles from the planned Almaden Plaza site. The chain, owned by Designer Brands, runs more than 500 stores nationwide and has signaled additional openings this year.

Silicon Valley retail vacancy has tightened over the past year, falling from 5.3 percent to 4.9 percent. Limited new construction has helped strengthen leasing demand, particularly in the San Jose-Campbell-Los Gatos area.

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal

UserMoment Prepares Northern California Launch from San Jose

A San Jose startup is set to introduce a new way for people and businesses to book local creative talent. UserMoment Technologies plans to open its location-based marketplace across Northern California on September 15, with an initial focus on San Jose, the broader Bay Area, and Sacramento.

The platform connects clients who need photographers, videographers, drone operators, or content creators with available professionals nearby. Users can choose real-time dispatch for more immediate requests, browse profiles and schedules for advanced bookings, or post their own project details and let creators respond. After a shoot, private galleries arrive through a U-Code system that lets clients preview and access their media securely.

Founder and CEO Andrews Dela Vega Puriran, a Filipino American U.S. Air Force veteran, developed the idea while completing a nursing program in Fremont. He balanced clinicals and classes with the work of building the platform, drawing on earlier inspiration from high school senior portrait systems that used unique codes for photo delivery. The company has already run early field tests of photo delivery and purchase flows.

UserMoment aims to give independent creators more direct paid opportunities while simplifying the search for local creative help at family events, small business campaigns, real estate shoots, and community gatherings. The San Jose-based team is currently finishing product polish, security work, and creator onboarding ahead of the September launch.

For more information, visit usermoment.com.

 

Veeam Software Expands Local Footprint at Santana Row

Veeam Software plans to occupy roughly 21,000 square feet of second-floor space at Santana Row by the end of the year, converting former retail square footage once occupied by H&M into offices. The Seattle-based company, focused on data security and recovery, will take the upper level above the first-floor spots now held by Vuori and Evereve.

The move follows Veeam’s December 2025 acquisition of Securiti.ai, which had already maintained a presence in the Santana Row area for several years, most recently at the nearby Santana West office building. Prior to the deal, Veeam lacked a formal Silicon Valley office even as some employees worked remotely from the region. The new space more than doubles the nearly 11,000 square feet Securiti.ai held, giving the combined teams room to grow.

Santana Row’s mix of shopping, dining and walkable amenities has continued to draw technology and professional firms seeking an appealing workplace environment. While San Jose’s overall office vacancy rate hovered near 18 percent, the office components at the Federal Realty development reached full occupancy earlier this year. The convenient highway access and established commuting patterns for existing staff made the location a practical choice for the expansion.

Veeam’s local office will primarily support technology and product development teams. Company leaders have signaled plans to add more engineering and product talent in the coming years as AI-driven demand continues.

Source: SVBJ

Dick’s Sporting Goods Plans Large House of Sport on Blossom Hill Road

Dick’s Sporting Goods will open a nearly 99,000-square-foot House of Sport store at 920 Blossom Hill Road in San Jose, on the rebuilt site of a former Home Depot destroyed by fire in 2022. The large-format location is expected to arrive in 2027 near Westfield Oakridge.

House of Sport stores go beyond traditional retail with interactive features such as climbing walls, golf simulators, and batting cages. The company has already filed permits for exterior remodeling and tenant improvements at the property. Brokers from Econic and others handled the lease.

The new store will replace Dick’s existing roughly 40,000-square-foot location at nearby Sunrise Plaza, where the retailer has operated for decades. The Blossom Hill corridor continues to draw national brands thanks to surrounding shopping centers, residential density, and convenient access. Boot Barn is also preparing an 18,000-square-foot store in the same area.

The arrival of this expanded format gives south San Jose shoppers a more experiential place to buy sporting goods and try activities on site while reinforcing the commercial strength of the Blossom Hill corridor.

Source: SVBJ

Randy's Donuts Brings Its Iconic Hollywood Flair to Santa Clara

The Los Angeles doughnut legend known for its enormous rooftop sign and appearances in films like Iron Man 2 arrived in the Bay Area on July 31 at 2595 Homestead Road in Santa Clara. Franchisee Ausaf Masud and his partners selected the more than 1,700-square-foot space as their flagship, complete with a kitchen sized to produce doughnuts for additional shops planned across the region.

The location sits a short walk from Stan’s Donut Shop, a Santa Clara institution that has served customers for more than 65 years. Masud’s team chose the Homestead Road site for its layout and freeway access rather than any desire to compete, and both shops are expected to draw steady morning and afternoon crowds given their different closing times. Randy’s stays open until 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends, while Stan’s wraps up by mid-afternoon.

Beyond the classic glazed and chocolate varieties, the new shop turns out roughly 50 handmade options that include specialty flavors and toppings. Coffee, specialty beverages, and breakfast items round out the menu. The opening created 24 local jobs, and the larger kitchen will supply future Bay Area stores once they open.

Masud’s group already has four more locations in the pipeline, with San Jose, Palo Alto, Fremont, and Redwood City under consideration. The brand’s long Hollywood association and growing catering potential for Silicon Valley companies add further interest for the region. A quick drive or bike ride from much of San Jose puts the new shop within easy reach for anyone curious about the latest addition to the South Bay’s doughnut scene.

Source: SVBJ

Boot Barn Heads to Blossom Hill Road Near Oakridge

Western-wear retailer Boot Barn will bring its first San Jose location to 932 Blossom Hill Road, the former Wagly Veterinary Hospital site. The 18,277-square-foot store is expected to open in 2027 and will sit close to Westfield Oakridge.

The Irvine-based chain specializes in boots, clothing, and accessories for work and everyday western style. Its nearest current stores stand in San Martin and Livermore, so the new site fills a clear gap for local shoppers. Brokers from Econic and CBRE handled the lease, noting the corridor’s strong mix of established shopping centers, nearby homes, and easy access.

Silicon Valley retail vacancy recently tightened to 4.9 percent, reflecting solid demand and limited new construction. Boot Barn continues expanding nationally with plans for 70 additional stores this fiscal year as it works toward a long-term total of 1,200 locations.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Launches East Village Business Improvement District

San Jose continues focusing on building stronger neighborhoods by establishing the East Village Business Improvement District along East Santa Clara Street. This new district will equip local businesses with dedicated funding for cleaning, safety enhancements, marketing, and beautification projects that will elevate the entire corridor.

Spanning from Sixth Street to 22nd Street, the area features 356 businesses supporting approximately 1,100 jobs. Starting this summer, these businesses will pool resources through modest annual contributions ranging from $125 to $250 based on their zone. The collected funds will deliver consistent services that address cleanliness and visibility while fostering greater collaboration among owners.

The move builds on the success of San Jose’s existing business improvement districts and adds fresh energy to a corridor already gaining recognition. You will notice the positive changes as sidewalks stay cleaner, public spaces look sharper, and new events bring more life to the street. With San José State University nearby, East Village stands poised to become an even more dynamic destination that showcases the best of the city’s entrepreneurial spirit.

San Jose now operates five such districts, demonstrating a proven strategy that keeps commercial areas vibrant and competitive.

Source: SVBJ

West Coast Community Bank Sets Up New Silicon Valley Headquarters in Downtown San Jose

You will soon see West Coast Community Bank operating its Silicon Valley headquarters from a prime spot in Downtown San Jose. The bank chose the first floor of 10 South Almaden Boulevard for its new location where 30 to 40 employees will make the transition at the end of June ahead of a July opening.

The relocation puts the bank right in the middle of the city’s historic financial district alongside Citibank U.S. Bank and Poppy Bank. West Coast Community Bank came together through the merger of Santa Cruz County Bank and 1st Capital Bank and quickly established itself as one of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing financial institutions. By committing to Downtown San Jose the bank signals strong confidence in the city’s future as a central business destination.

Meanwhile the previous Cupertino site on Stevens Creek Boulevard will convert into a 363-unit apartment complex developed by The Hanover Company. This development adds valuable housing stock while allowing the bank to embrace a more transit-oriented and vibrant setting.

Source: SVBJ

The silver lining behind Camino Brewing's closure

No one wants to see a popular business shut down in San Jose. Sadly Camino Brewing Co. announced that they were closing their operations last week. Fortunately, there is a silver lining... the space will not be vacant for long.

Word on the street is that the entire space will be reinvented and the building owner--Jim Salata--wants to have a new concept open THIS summer. It sounds like it will be much more than a taproom and may or may not include a brewery on site. They have a great outdoor area, so I can't wait to see what the new space will look like.

Jim Salata also has another project in the Downtown San Jose area. He's restoring the former Faber's Cyclery into a new bar called Benjamin's Saloon. However the Camino replacement will take top priority, especially since Faber's Cyclery is in a 140 year old building that has to be painstakingly restored.

Source: The Mercury News

 

San Jose developing new business incentives for AI

AI is currently the future of tech, there is no way around it. San Jose has declared its intentions to become a hub for AI, including turning Downtown San Jose into an incubator for AI startups. However, now our city seems to be taking a further step and planning business incentives for AI companies as part of the initial budgeting sessions of the year. It's still too early to know what form these would take or how much would be available, but the goal is officially there.

Also part of the budgetary priorities are incentives for manufacturing companies and expanding the residential high-rise program citywide to encourage high-density development outside of Downtown San Jose.

Source: SVBJ

10th Street Distillery in San Jose

San Jose now has a whiskey distillery, which apparently is our first since Prohibition. It sits near our craft breweries at 2131 S. 10th St., just one building over from Strike Brewing. Two tech engineers decided to follow their dream and created 10th Street Distillery to make Scottish-style spirits right here in San Jose.

They carry a couple different types of whiskies, a Peated Single Malt (smokey) that has won multiple awards and a STR Single Malt that is smooth and slightly sweet. Total Wine & More as well as several liquor stores have started carrying the product. You can also find them in San Jose's top craft cocktail bars such as Haberdasher, Paper Plane, Miniboss, 55 South, District, and Five Points.

10th Street Distillery doesn't have a public tasting room setup yet, but they do offer tours and tasting events if you sign up on their website over here.

Bill.com is moving from Palo Alto to San Jose

Bill.com was the 2nd largest Bay Area tech IPO last year and they have decided to make San Jose their new home. They are moving from Palo Alto to 132,000 SQFT at 6220 America Center Drive. This is an office complex in Alviso that also features three Marriott Hotels (including an Aloft) and HP Enterprise's Headquarters.

They are nearly tripling their space from only 48,200 SQFT at 1810 Embarcadero. That means more jobs for San Jose at a fast-growing tech company whose shares are now public. Bill.com is currently worth just shy of $3 billion and employs over 500 people.

Source: SVBJ

Twitter is opening an office at Santana Row

Yet another tech giant is dipping their toes into San Jose. Twitter is leasing around 30,000 SQFT in Santana Row, which is enough for 150 to 200 employees.

This is leading to rumors that they are eyeing the massive 360,000 SQFT Santana West project across the street. That would make quite a nice second headquarters, similar to Splunk--one of their Santana Row neighbors. Eventually Santana West will have a million SQFT of office space which is plenty of room for a tech company to stretch out into.

Source: SVBJ

Verizon bringing 3,400 employees to San Jose

San Jose's Coleman Highline looks like it will be fully leased before construction is over. Verizon Communications will join Roku in leasing generous amounts of space at the property. Verizon is grabbing 640,000 SQFT across multiple buildings, which is enough for 3,400 employees. 2,400 of those will be coming from an existing campus in Sunnyvale.

Coleman Highline will eventually have 1.75 million SQFT of space across eight office buildings, two hotels, and retail spaces. Project completion is scheduled for 2021.

Source: SVBJ

Resident Roundtable: Life and Work in San Jose

A new video has been published by San Jose OED that focuses on three different people working and living in San Jose. It's short, but is an interesting and realistic discussion nonetheless.

San Jose ranked 2nd best small business growth city

For the 2nd year in a row, San Jose was ranked as the 2nd best metro for small businesses in the US.  The analysis was based on the financials of almost 30,000 companies. San Jose also had the highest average credit score of any city.

Miami took the crown for being the #1 growth city for small business, while San Francisco came in 3rd place. Below is the full list.

Top 25 Cities for Small Business 2019

1. Miami (No. 3)
2. San Jose, CA (No. 2)
3. San Francisco (No. 4)
4. New York (No. 1)
5. San Diego (No. 9)
6. Los Angeles (No. 5)
7. Boston (unranked)
8. Sacramento, CA (No. 10)
9. Baltimore (No. 16)
10. Washington, DC (No. 7)
11. Philadelphia (No. 22)
12. Chicago (No. 12)
13. Seattle (No. 14)
14. Riverside, CA (No. 6)
15. Minneapolis (unranked)
16. Phoenix (No. 11)
17. Las Vegas (No. 18)
18. Charlotte, NC (No. 24)
19. Nashville, TN (unranked)
20. Raleigh, NC (unranked)
21. Detroit (No. 20)
22. Oklahoma City (unranked)
23. Houston (No. 21)
24. Cleveland (unranked)
25. Pittsburgh (unranked)

Source: SJ Economy Blog

Google expanding to North San Jose

Google has a long term vision of building an epic 8 million SQFT campus in Downtown San Jose near Diridon. That project that will probably take a decade to come to fruition. Fortunately, there is another Google project in North San Jose with a much shorter horizon.

Google has just secured leases on three buildings totaling 611,535 SQFT that have yet to be constructed at 60 North Brokaw (near Casino M8trix). Peery-Arrillaga, the developer, has already requested permits to start construction. Two of the buildings would be eight stories tall, while the third is four stories.

The buildings could accommodate up to 4,900 employees, and they could start moving in as early as 2021. That sounds like ages from now, but is less than two years away. Since Mountain View real estate is completely tapped out, this is the first step in a long journey for Google to move the majority of their Silicon Valley operations to San Jose. Without major changes in building policies up north, San Jose is without a doubt Google's future.

Sources: SVBJ, San Jose Inside

Self-driving grocery deliveries coming to San Jose courtesy of a San Jose startup company

The timeline for self-driving cars has been significantly underestimated. Waymo is already running a limited number of rides to beta customers in Arizona with no safety driver. Tesla is 6 months away from enabling basic self-driving features on over 200,000 consumer cars. And AutoX Inc. just started doing self-driving grocery deliveries late last month.

AutoX is headquartered in North San Jose (off of Trimble) and has two satellite offices in China. They raised $43 million in fundy last year from Danhua Capital, MediaTek Ventures, and SAIC Capital.

Several residents in a geo-fenced area near the headquarters are already eligible for service. Customers can either pick what they want to be delivered from the app or make last minute purchasing decisions when picking up the groceries from the car. You read that correctly... the car itself is a store.

They just have a handful of vehicles today, but are looking to grow to 20 cars very soon and expand the service to Mountain View and Palo Alto. For more info, head over to AutoX.ai or watch the video below.

It's great to see a San Jose company both pushing technological boundaries and providing new services to their immediate community!

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.

8x8 is moving their HQ to Coleman Highline in San Jose

The Coleman Highline office project next to Avaya Stadium just scored an anchor tenant. 8x8 has reserved the entire first building, which is 162,000 SQFT. This is a 22,000 SQFT upgrade over their current headquarters (also in San Jose) with lots of room to grow in the future.

The entire Coleman Highline project will take up 1.5 million SQFT, all connected with aerial walkways. The first phase of the project should be ready by early 2019.

Source: SVBJ