SJC celebrates 75 years with a giant chick in Terminal B

If you have flown out of San Jose recently, you might be wondering why there is a giant inflatable baby chick at baggage claim. The bird is there to commemorate the airport's 75th anniversary. The first commercial flight at SJC arrived in 1949 with two pilots, seven passengers, and 2,550 baby chickens. Only the chickens exited at SJC, the rest of the passengers continued on to LAX.

For the full history of the airport and a contest to win some swag by taking photos with the chicks (there are multiple throughout the airport) fly over here.

Santana Row Spring Fling Wine Stroll

Walk down the Row while enjoying an assortment of wines in select shops and restaurants. The two hour event runs from 5-7pm on April 18th and includes a Santana Row wine glass to keep and wine tastings from local Bay Area wineries.

The cost is $50 per person, and you can also get a complimentary flower bouquet if you spend more than $100 while strolling down the Row. You can order tickets here.

Caltrain tests first batch of electric trains

Caltrain is planning to run electric trains between San Jose and San Francisco. Testing of the first set of trains has been complete. The new trains should bring less noise, help improve regional air quality, and reduce travel times. They'll even have easier access to power outlets and WiFi.

The electric trains will also allow for a 9% increase in weekday peak-hour service, which is scheduled to begin late this year and ramp up to maximum capacity in 2025.

Source: KRON4

 

Moving scheduled posting times

Just a quick note that I'll be moving the scheduled posts from 6am to 7am. Very few people are actually up at 6am and 95% of readers are in PT. In rare cases where there are two posts in one day, the second one will still be scheduled for noon.

TikTok is subleasing major San Jose office building

A controversial tenant is subleasing an office building at 1143 Coleman Ave, also known as the Coleman Highline. TikTok is going to ramp up their operations in San Jose. I'm assuming this will be the case whether or not their China-based parent company--ByteDance--is forced to sell their interest in the company. By the way, ByteDance also has 658,000 SQFT in that same office complex.

TikTok will be subleasing the space from Roku. It appears that they will take a total of over 350,000 SQFT across two buildings.

Source: The Mercury News

203 homes proposed off of East Capital Expressway

MidPen Housing is planning to build a 100% affordable housing project at the intersection of East Capitol Expressway and Narvaez Avenue. This is right next to a VTA transit station on East Capital Expressway.

The project would consist of 203 homes divided into studios, 1bd, 2bd, and 3bd units spread across two buildings connected by an open-air elevated walkway. The proposal has already been fast-tracked and only requires the approval of the Planning Department.

There is no official ETA for construction as MidPen is currently seeking financing for the project.

Source: Mercury News

Nvidia AI Conference taking place in Downtown San Jose right now

The latest advancements in AI hardware--which is quickly headed to becoming a multi-trillion dollar market--are being announced right now in Downtown San Jose. Yesterday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivered his keynote at the SAP Center. Throughout the rest of the week, about 10,000 visitors will attend workshops and panel discussions at the McEnery Convention Center each day.

San Jose has a strong desire to make Downtown the AI capital of the world. Hosting Nvidia's flagship conference here is definitely a big win.

Source: San Jose Downtown Association

San Jose will get $12.7 million to build 200 tiny homes

San Jose is acquiring state funding to purchase 200 tiny homes to house a portion of our homeless population. San Jose qualified for the funding due to its record of actually building interim housing instead of just talking about it. So far San Jose has built 499 small homes and plans for 784 more beds.

San Jose already has a site selected for the new homes in North San Jose near VTA operations. The project will be named the Cerone Interim Housing Community and it is expected to open next year.

Source: Patch