Posted on 10/15/2021 11:31:43 AM PDT by Vendome
With a lack of tech workers and foot traffic, downtown San Jose became a ghost town during the pandemic, but five miles away high-end Santana Row flourished.
These two destinations linked by San Carlos and Stevens Creek boulevards and Interstate 280 are worlds apart socioeconomically and the COVID-19 pandemic made that schism wider.
Downtown was hit incredibly hard by shelter-in-place mandates during the pandemic. Numerous businesses were unable to survive, leaving streets littered with empty restaurants and storefronts. Built more for office workers than retail shoppers, its restaurants and bars suffered as tech employees worked from home.
Uphill road for the downtown
The lack of patrons downtown took a toll on its economy. In September, Derrick Seaver, president of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, said some businesses reported 70-80% of pre-pandemic revenue loss.
But Kat Yandell, who moved to Santana Row from downtown six months ago, felt the Row had become too crowded and it made her uncomfortable during the pandemic. Yandell said service businesses suffered during the pandemic, with some being closed for more than a year, like W’s salon. When health guidelines permitted, she said, it moved its chairs outside and Lavande Nail Spa offered mani pedis on the street.
Yandell used to enjoy taking walks in downtown San Jose, but stopped due to the increased homeless population. Santana Row offers a better quality of nightlife and is a one-stop shop with dentistry, a pharmacy, salons and restaurants, she added.
(Excerpt) Read more at sanjosespotlight.com ...
I can't stand Santana Row.
The patrons are pretentious little....and restaurants are not that great either.
Rather be across the street at Valley Fair. All the high end stores are there anyway...
How did the Stanford/Palo Alto mall do?
Nah, give me the little towns - Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park. Even downtown Mountain View, Campbell, or Sunnyvale. Unfortunately, the bums have gotten real bad in Menlo Park in recent years. They’ve been bad in Palo Alto for 40 years now. Neither town has the cajones to oust the bums. “Equity” and all that.
The sickening part of the homeless is they are across the street from Discovery Museum and wade into family gatherings like they belong...
That’s awful...I didn’t know that they were around there now. The encampments are everywhere and nobody has the balls to roust them out.
Yeah I live in San Jose. You’d have to pay me to go to downtown, which is a s***hole, despite the hundreds of millions that the “redevelopment” agencies have poured into this area. It’s soulless compared to the vibrancy of Santana Row and Valley Fair, across the street.
Moved last summer from San Jose after living there over 30 years.
I haven’t been back. Wonder what it will be like when I go back.
Well the big concern now is whether single-family homeowners are going to chop up their lots into multi-tenant dwellings. I sure hope not but apparently owning a single-family home is RASSISSSSSS or sumthin’.
"Yandell used to enjoy taking walks in downtown San Jose, but stopped due to the increased homeless population."
When I lived there, we had one restaurant we liked in downtown SJ.
Eventually we got tired of dealing with SJ and stopped going there.
They even managed to dumb down the Science Museum to a point even idiots thought it was dumb.
Oh and don’t mention the “Imperial Turd” monument.
Occasionally, I have business in Downtown San Jose. I used to always eat at Original Joe’s, but at some point they stopped serving lunch. Booooo.
I lived in Santa Clara and San Jose for 20 years. Going back next weekend for the first time in three years. It’ll be nice to check in, but frankly all I miss is the weather
That giant turd just looks plain stew Pet...
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