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

Lew Wolff helps move along a 19-story hotel project

Lew Wolff, one of the key developers responsible for the Fairmont San Jose, is now in talks to purchase a 19-story hotel project next to the Hotel DeAnza. The deal is expected to close in September and would bring the project much closer to becoming a reality.

This would likely be a trendy brand catering to young professionals that do not want to rent cars (there will be no on-site parking). It also features some really nice amenities like a rooftop restaurant and bar.

San Jose is in desperate need of more hotel rooms to support local companies and events. New hotel projects like this and the cantilevered Tribute Hotel can't come soon enough.

Source: SVBJ

New mural near City Hall

The corner of Third and East Santa Clara Street has gotten a beautiful new mural commissioned by the City. Enso bar and nightclub was willing to host the mural and even prepped the wall for the artists. The whole process of painting the mural was captured in the short video below.

Source: SJ Economy Blog

The Icon

A Chevron gas station near City Hall is going to be transformed into a 20-story residential tower with up to 250 market-rate units called the Icon. Urban Catalyst just revealed the render below last week. The sleek tower features multiple balconies and 7,500 SQFT of retail on the ground floor.

This appears to be just one of 10 project Urban Catalyst is planning for Downtown San Jose. A hotel, senior living residence, student housing building, co-living development, and an office building are also in the works. It total, they are planning to add $1 billion in value to San Jose's core.

The source article includes an interview with Joshua Burroughs and it is well worth a read if you are a Silicon Valley Business Journal Subscriber.

Source: SVBJ

August 2019 Downtown Dimension Highlights

The latest addition of Downtown Dimension is now live. Below is a summary of the content this month: The AUGUST 2019 Downtown Dimension is now available at: https://sjdowntown.com/wp_2016/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DTDAugust2019.pdf In this edition: SJDA has a new event:  Brews + Bites.  Save the date:  Sept. 14.  A beer social in the Circle of Palms featuring favorite local brews, plus bites.  We'll add some music and other goodies. Coinciding with this event is Downtown Week, Yelp is working with SJDA to present Downtown Week Sept. 9-15 to celebrate Downtown businesses. August is full of events.  Biggest is the San Jose Jazz Summer fest.  We offer musical highlights. SJDA's August event schedule is heavy, with Music in the Park, City Dance, Starlight Cinemas and the Farmers' Market. We update all current construction activity in downtown San Jose. Welcome Tierney Yates, SJDA's new Partnership Manager.   San Jose Downtown Association has a public meeting August 9, 8-9:30 a.m. at San Jose Museum of Art.  Guest speaker is Police Chief Eddie Garcia.  Keep up with all that's happening downtown: Live and Local SJ live music Traffic alerts lane and road closures. Maps of downtown commercial property availability and development proposals. Boom City: SJDA's continuing summary of new downtown building proposals and west side acquisitions,  Downtown Dimension is a leading source for information about downtown San Jose news, events and businesses.  Subscribe with a simple email to sjda@sjdowntown.com, subject line:  Subscribe. Copyright © 2019 San Jose Downtown Association, All rights reserved.

Downtown BART subway alterations

After the huge debate between whether to use a double or single bore subway systems for BART's expansion to Downtown San Jose, it appears there is still some controversy with the design. It was decided that the expansion would use a single bore, which would make it the first system of it's kind in the United States. The key benefit of the design is that we would not have to dig up all of Santa Clara Street and disrupt businesses and residents for years. It would actually be less expensive to build. The downside is that this segment of the BART system would be completely different than the rest of the network, and that would require extensive retraining of staff.

Now it appears that there is a compromise solution, and that is to increase the size of the tunnel from 45 feet to a massive 55 feet. By volume, that is about a 50% increase in size. This would allow the trains to run side by side like the rest of the network, but would increase cost and complexity.

It is actually an interesting proposal for me because the extra space above and below the trains could perhaps be utilized for another mode of transportation. It looks large enough for electric buses or even Light Rail. Perhaps, we could see a next generation Loop or Hyperloop system utilize those spaces. While it is clear San Jose needs to be fully connect to BART, we should also think about how we can leverage this project to support the future generation of mobility.

Source: SVBJ

Backyard San Jose

A new pop-up community space is coming to Fountain Alley in Downtown San Jose (35 S. 2nd Street). For three whole months, Backyard San Jose is turning a parking lot into a public space with cultural events, concerts, classes, and networking events. There will be something going on seven days a week.

Backyard San Jose is throwing a launch party on August 15th from 6pm to 9pm with music, food, beer, and wine.

The list of partners and contributors to this project is impressive:

• ABM Industries
• Anno Domini Gallery
• BandWagon
• Be The Change Yoga
• Beyond Meat
• Children’s Discovery Museum
• Cinequest
• City of San Jose
• Code for San Jose
• Content Magazine
• Downtown Screen Printers
• Feather
• Fractal Flora
• Gray Area Art + Technology
• Good Karma
• Heroes Martial Arts
• Local Color
• MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana
• Meetup
• Omnipotent Studios
• Park Lab
• Paseo Prototyping Festival
• PATH Homeless Assistance
• Pink Sparrow
• Pop Kids Yoga
• Public Space Authority
• San Jose Come Up
• San Jose Downtown Association
• San Jose Improv
• San Jose Made
• San Jose State University Cadre Media Lab
• Silicon Valley Pride
• SOMA Streat Food
• SPRO Coffee Lab
• SPUR
• Swordfighting School
• The Get Down Dance Studios
• The People’s Table
• Universal Grammar
• Urban Community
• WebEnertia
• WeWork Labs
• ZERO1

For more details and to RSVP to their launch party (not required), head over here.

Source: Gillynova from the San Jose Development Forum

San Jose is the 3rd best city for startup companies

COMMERCIALCafe has crunched data from the 50 most populous urban centers to find the places that are best suited for entrepreneurs and startup companies. Dallas and San Diego took the two top spots, followed by San Jose, LA, and Houston, and Chicago.

San Jose was ranked first for tech education, tech education growth, and for the success of Kickstarter projects (36% of projects are funded). For tech employment growth, we were 2nd. We are also the seventh-most attractive city for millennials, which is counter to most stereotypes about the South Bay.

To see the full study, please head over here.