Last week, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved an official Cesar E. Chavez walkway, a five-mile route beginning downtown at the park named after the civil rights hero who founded the United Farm Workers of America. The route will continue east all the way down Santa Clara Street, almost to 680, and then south before looping back up and around to the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
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Public Market Deserves Support
Guest Column
By Steve Borkenhagen
Downtown San Jose has suffered for decades from a severe lack of retail activity. We have a number of entertainment venues, museums, restaurants, bars, offices and (more recently) housing, but we have not had a vibrant retail area in the heart of our city since the 1960s. Generations of South Bay residents have never experienced retail excitement in Downtown San Jose. The San Jose Public Market has the potential to change this.
A Plan for Policing Downtown
Guest Column
By John Conway
As a founding member of the San Jose Restaurant and Entertainment Association, I want to bring you up to speed on developments regarding the public-private partnership that is evolving to share the fair costs of a new policing model for our downtown Entertainment Zone.
Blight Makes Right
In an Aug. 13, 2008, cover story, I channeled the Urban Blight Exploration Junkie and raved over the Pink Elephant Center, that landmark rundown strip mall at the corner of King Road and Virginia in San Jose City Council District 5. I had quacked about the place once before in a previous column, but for that travel feature, titled “Postcards from the Edge of San Jose,” in which I mapped out ignored masterpieces in each district, striking visuals were necessary to properly document the shabby outré ugliness of that East Side monument.
Searching for Goog
Last week, Apple announced that next year’s MacWorld would be its last. In a related article, the SF Chronicle reported that several other large trade shows have been cancelled, and that the city would take a direct financial hit as a consequence. The article offered a quote from an industry expert who declared the days of large-scale trade shows to be over.
Meanwhile, San Jose continues to make plans for a $300 million expansion of the convention center. Rather than spending $300 million on the expansion, why not entice Google to buy the Sobrato Tower (now owned by Oracle) with a $100 million subsidy? Think about it…a Google move to the downtown would be a huge (and permanent) financial shot in the arm for the hotels, restaurants, and merchants.
May I Park In Your Driveway Every Day…For Free?
Tomato Thyme is a popular restaurant in my district that operates out of a typical suburban shopping center—with parking in the front and the buildings in the back. Tenants in this shopping center include Safeway, Rite Aid, Bally’s Fitness, Bank, Dry Cleaner and even a Moose Lodge.
Consumers patronize shopping centers like this, but may never ponder who actually owns the land. In some cases the land is owned by one person, and in other cases there are many owners. In this shopping center, there are six different property owners. They each own their specific building and specific parking spaces. The six owners have had a shared parking agreement in place for years that has allowed customers to park wherever they wanted and visit whichever store they choose without being towed. This parking agreement is expiring in a few months, and renewing it is up to the private property owners.
McEnery’s Market
Every serious baseball fan who has traveled a bit has seen the benefit that can come from economic development projects like the San Jose Public Market. During the 1980s and ‘90s, many American cities invested public money to build baseball stadiums in the hope that they would stimulate economic activity. There are now vibrant neighborhoods surrounding ballparks from Washington D.C. to Denver. Often controversial when proposed, these neighborhoods now stand as testament to the wisdom of public-private partnerships in pursuit of urban development. The only downside seems to be the preponderance of newspaper headlines saying (you guessed it): “If You Build It, They Will Come.”
Shop SJ
Last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference to promote the city’s new campaign to encourage San Francisco residents to keep their consumer dollars in San Francisco. “SHOP SF-Get More” provides San Francisco residents with incentives to do their Christmas shopping within city limits so that San Francisco receives the tax revenues. Where’s San Jose’s “SHOP SJ” campaign?
Single Gal and What are you Thankful For?
On Thanksgiving, it’s always a good time to think about what we are thankful for. Sometimes we race by in life and don’t ever take that time to ponder. So please add what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving.
San Jose Magazine Closes
Rumors have swirled that San Jose Magazine was about to bite the dust, and confirmation came this evening with an item by the Mercury News’ Sal Pizarro. The columnist reports that the December issue will be San Jose Magazine’s last. Instead of plugging plastic surgeons and lawyers on glossy pages, the company will reinvent itself as a video production company, according to Publisher Gilbert Sangari.
Single Gal and Is Campbell the New “It” Place?
It has been discussed here before many times about how to make San Jose a cooler, hipper, more “it” place to be, but it seems as if Campbell may have cornered the market on “it.” Whenever you seem to meet a nice, young person in the South Bay, if they don’t commute back and forth from San Francisco, inevitably, if you ask them where they live or where they spend most of their time, it’s Campbell
Sell the Hayes Mansion
Last week the San Jose City Council discussed the Hayes Mansion, a historic 100-year-old south San Jose estate. The City of San Jose bought this property about 10 years ago. The story of “why” the City purchased the property is long…and depending on whom you ask, the reasoning can change. Therefore, for the sake of brevity, I will skip the reason why the City owns the 214-room hotel with two restaurants and twenty five conference rooms.
Council May Need Sobriety Test
The San Jose City Council needs to get a grip on its demeanor in public. They’ve been a bit out of control with some recent comments. I was surprised but not amazed to see the statements from City Hall revolving around the topic of public drunkenness and arrests by the San Jose Police Department in the Downtown area. Basically, several members were quoted saying they’re appalled at the number of arrests, and the disparity in the arrest rate of Hispanics, far out to proportion to their one-third share of the San Jose population.
It is not surprising that the Council is out of touch on certain issues. But the situation has become frightening to those trying to live or run small businesses in Central San Jose.
State Props 1A & 2
Over the next couple of weeks, SJI will be presenting a series of endorsements of the state propositions and local measures that will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot. These were written by reporters and editors at Metro and its sister-publications, and are presented here not so much to preach any one point of view, but more to spur conversation and debate. Of course we are counting on all of you to contribute your two-cents worth.
The Italian Job
It seemed like the grassroots effort to name a San Jose neighborhood Little Italy was cruising along with the grace of a Ferrari on a Formula One track. But in case anyone was getting ready to start belting out “Funiculì, Funiculà” prematurely, the lessons of Little Saigon should have been a warning: Members of an ethnic group don’t always sing to the same sheet music.
The horse head in the bed in this case was an Aug. 26 email grenade lobbed by one of the godfathers of the local Italian-American community to a mailing list of about 75 people, most of whose last names end in a vowel.
Art of the City
Silicon Alleys
SOMETIMES one has to go outside the usual stomping ground to look for inspiration. In this latest case, the backdrop was Kansas City, Mo., a place you wouldn’t normally expect to see a thriving live/work arts district with dozens of galleries that attract thousands of people every first Friday of the month. The Crossroads Arts District in K.C. is exactly that and last week I infiltrated the scene, found the muse and expunged the usual ornery ennui from my psyche.
