New Hypothetical Scenario For SJC

5 months ago Anthony Dominguez, one of our readers, posed a hypothetical question regarding the need for our airport occupying prime real estate in central San Jose. In this post, he proposed to consolidate operations with SFO, which will eventually be a very short High-Speed Rail ride away.

Today, Anthony proposes a different scenario. Instead of merging with SFO, he's proposing to combine SJC operations with the Hollister Municipal Airport, where there are vast amounts of space to build a world class international airport. He wrote an in-depth document about this over here, of which I'll just post the proposed benefits:

Benefits Of A New SJC/Hollister - San Jose
a ) No building height restrictions in the downtown, central San Jose or along the N. First Street corridor.
b ) Aircraft noise elimination for vast areas of central San Jose.
c ) Opportunity to redevelop the current Mineta/SJC site into revenue generating urban development, including the adaptive reuse of current terminal/parking complex.
d ) Future population growth for San Jose could now be accommodated in high-rise/high density developments at the Mineta site, downtown core and N. First Street/Monterey Hwy. corridors.
e ) Shared revenues from SJC/Hollister operation.

Benefits Of A New SJC/Hollister - Hollister/San Benito County

a ) Economic stimulus in the form of tax revenue from airport and related developments; i.e. hospitality, retail, aviation support services.
b ) Employment opportunities associated with airport and service/support operations.
c ) High-speed rail connectivity to San Jose, Silicon Valley and Central California for Hollister and San Benito County commuters/travelers.

In order for you to be able to read the entire proposal, I posted it as a public Google Doc. Click here to access the document!

New Electric Car Charging Stations Installed in San Jose

Coulomb Technologies is a visionary company that is currently building infrastructure to support a barrage of upcoming electric vehicles (e.g. Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S). Coulomb's very first customer was actually the City of San Jose, and around city hall you'll find 3 of their first charging stations. So when Coulomb received a $37m government grant to build thousands of free charging stations across California, what city do you think they picked to start with? Well, as of yesterday we're the proud owners of the first 2 Chargepoint America EV charging stations which are located in the McEnery Convention Center parking lot. Several hundred more are to follow in other parts of San Jose and Silicon Valley, giving us a nice head start in building out infrastructure for electric cars.

New Yorks Times Article RE: Downtown San Jose

Awesome article in the New York Times about San Jose entitled "Fresh Start for a Rebirth Stalled by a Recession." I think it actually does a pretty good job at conveying the current situation Downtown. As an added bonus, the article also mentions a new development in North First featuring 1,750 apartments sitting on top of retail called Crescent Village. The folks from the development forum think it will be built on the site of a former Sony campus. For the full NYT article click here!

Alaskan Adds ANOTHER Flight, San Jose to Los Cabos

Yet another Alaskan Airlines flight is in the works for our newly remodeled airport. This time, it's an international flight to Los Cabos, Mexico--a popular tourist destination with many great beaches and hotels. This is the first international flight SJC has added in quite some time [CORRECTION - Voltaris added a flight to Mexico on June 30th]. Pending approval, the new route kicks off Nov 20th with service 3 times per week. For more info, you know the drill.

Lou's Village is Being Resurrected in Willow Glen!

Remember that new 41,000sqft development in Willow Glen? Well it turns out that one of their anchor tenants is none other than Lou's Village, one of San Jose's original flagship restaurants. Lou's plans to open up in 2012 on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Willow St. For more details, click here!

 

Sherman Cellars Wine Tasting Coming Downtown!

I was reading A Perfect Finish's newsletter--a damn good wine bar on 1st, btw--and stumbled on this bit of news that somehow fell through the cracks of everything else I read about downtown. As of Aug 3rd, we will officially have a wine tasting room in Downtown San Jose! An added bonus is that it will be right around the corner from one of the few wine bars in San Jose (and the only one I know of that is open until 2am on Fri and Sat in Silicon Valley).

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Wine Tasting Comes to downtown San Jose!
Sherman Cellars, 40 Post Street (just down from A Perfect Finish) will celebrate the Grand Opening of their Winery Tasting Room, Tuesday August 3, at 12:00 noon.  Join us, our city Councilman, Sam Liccardo and other dignitaries for the newest tasting room in Santa Clara Valley


Sherman Cellars will feature the wines ofCreekview Vineyards of San Martin.  The winemakers, Teri and Greg Peterson make an incredible array of whites and reds from Santa Clara Valley fruit, including their own estate vineyard.  From Santa Clara Valley Chardonnay to their big Melody Estate bordeaux style red their wines always please. 

After August 3, Sherman Cellars will be open for tasting: Wednesday through Sunday, 11am to 5pm.  

288-WINE (9463)

Bowling for Downtown San Jose?

I go out of the country for a few days and all sorts of San Jose development news pop up. Let's start with this one... trendy bowling may finally be coming to downtown San Jose. Lucky Strikes was supposed to lease the ground floor of The Globe back in 2007, but the recession shut that deal down. Now it looks like Lucky Strikes is reevaluating this opportunity AND Tavern + Bowl is also in the running to take over that spot. The retail space has been soundproofed years ago in anticipation of a bowling alley and is pretty much ready to go when the owners of The Globe (CIM) decide which proposal to accept. For more details, head on over to the San Jose Business Journal.

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