Team San Jose Doubles Revenue Goals

Team San Jose, the city’s tourism and facilities management agency, vastly exceeded gross revenue goals last year. In 2012-13, the decade-old nonprofit generated $23.8 million—more than twice the projected target, according to an annual audit up for review at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

It’s a dramatic turnaround for an agency that only a few years ago risked losing its contract with the city by running over budget.

The private-public organization drew 1.1 million people to events and booked about 248,000 future hotel room nights in 2012-13. It met performance targets mostly because it eased concerns about the $130 million renovation of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, which finished up construction in September.

The agency manages convention and cultural facilities, including the convention center, San Jose Civic, Parkside Hall, South Hall, Center for the Performing Arts, California Theater and Montgomery Theater.

More from the San Jose City Council agenda for December 3, 2013:

• Some $291,450 in revenue from the state car registration fee will pay for consultants to study the timing of San Jose’s traffic signals. Traffic lights need to be adjusted from time to time to reflect current travel patterns, especially with increased interconnectivity with public transit like the light rail.

• San Jose’s budget has started to stabilize after a decade of service and budget cuts, according to an annual financial review considered by the council this week. Fiscal year 2012-13 ended with growth in several revenue categories, including sales tax, construction tax and developer fees. Property tax only showed modest improvement.

The current-year budget adopted in June was balanced for the second year in a row and based on the assumption of continued economic improvement. Construction activity this year increased 7 percent to a valuation of $946 million, a decade-plus high. Housing also continued to show improvement since 2012, with the median price for single-family homes jumping 24 percent from June to June 2012 to 2013.

• Plans to place a music pavilion in St. James Park go before the council this week. Councilmember Sam Liccardo, whose district encompasses downtown, is encouraging community members to show up in support of this measure.

• Should the Stevens Ranch Fruit Barn on Senter Road become a historical landmark? The folks who own the property want the city to designate it a city landmark because it hearkens back to Silicon Valley’s days as an agricultural hub.

• A conversation struck up by the Planning Commission about changing the maximum allowable height of buildings around the Mineta San Jose International Airport makes its way to the council.

WHAT: City Council meets
WHEN: 1:30pm Tuesday
WHERE: 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose
INFO: City Clerk, 408-535-7611

Jennifer Wadsworth is the former news editor for San Jose Inside and Metro Silicon Valley. Follow her on Twitter at @jennwadsworth.

One Comment

  1. So $23.8 million gross, likely far less net, is newsworthy (despite years of losing tens of millions)… But somehow over $2 BILLION of Redevelopment debt and another BILLION in Airport debt consistently fail to get reported on.  SJI must be vying for Herhold’s City Hall office.

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