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Dear Neighbor,
If we want to make room for our kids and grandkids in San José, we can’t keep using yesterday’s rules and expect a better tomorrow. This week, we tried something new to bring over 100 new homes to San José's oldest and most iconic downtown building.
Nearly 100 years ago, completing the Bank of Italy building was a novel achievement. Back then, San Jose’s population was just 40,000, and I imagine they all looked up at the tallest building in San José with pride and hope for what their city could become. In fact, for decades the Bank of Italy was the tallest building between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Today, we’re a city of one million people — we’ve become a city full of opportunity, but at the same time, a city in desperate need of more housing. Typical home prices in San José have tripled in just the last 15 years and have far outpaced growth in average wages. 35% of homeowners and 49% of renters in San José spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
We need to give our community hope that San José can still be a city where working families can thrive, where young people can build a future, and where seniors can age in place. The best thing we can do right now to stabilize home prices and increase economic opportunity is build more housing. And we, of course, want to focus that growth in places like Downtown, near transit, and in our urban villages, which have the infrastructure and amenities to support more residents.
Vacant since 2017, the Bank of Italy building has outlived its useful life as an office space and is in need of a complete renovation that the currently anemic office market won’t support. And while the opportunity to turn it into homes for our residents has been plain as day, anyone who has explored converting an office space — especially a historic building — into housing has historically been met with resistance and the simple reality that it is expensive and risky to pull off. The math just didn’t pencil.
But in San José we solve problems by innovating, so we changed the formula. We cut construction taxes, reduced parkland fees and eliminated inclusionary housing requirements for projects that deliver homes Downtown. On paper and in isolation, rules like requiring projects to include a number of units capped at affordable rents sound great — most of the rules about building housing put in place over the last several decades do. But stacked on top of each other, they’ve created a wall that developers can’t get over to make housing pencil, blocking our City from what we need most.
| | On Monday, we took a sledgehammer to that wall and said “yes” to over 100 new homes in our downtown. Just as the Bank of Italy building was the first-of-its-kind a century ago, it’s now the first office-to-residential conversion underway, showing what San José can become. | | This week, in partnership with the Bay Area Council and OpenAI, we offered our first free AI workshops at the newly opened AI Center for Civic & Social Good located at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. The workshops were part of San José’s AI for All initiative, a public-private partnership with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to make AI education and technology freely available to every San José resident. AI is changing how we learn, work and live, and we’re committed to making sure no resident is left behind. By offering free, hands-on classes that teach effective prompting and real-world skills — like writing a resume or managing your to-do list — we’re ensuring everyone, from seniors to young people entering the workforce, has the tools, training, and confidence to succeed in the AI era. | | |
We know mass adoption of these tools is where the world of work is headed — in fact, it’s already here. We want AI to augment jobs, not take them away — and in San José, we’re doing everything we can to help our community get ahead of this technological change and benefit from it.
In fact, we’ve been training city employees to safely automate more routine elements of their work, which has saved thousands of hours in greater efficiency and enabled workers to redirect their time to higher-level, more creative work. To date, over 700 city employees — about 10% of our workforce — have taken what we call our “AI Upskilling” course, and some are reporting up to 20% efficiency gains in their work!
We’re going to keep investing in our people – and the tools they use – to better serve you.
| | The first stop of our San José Budget Road Show is in the books! We have two in-person stops to go, and one virtual town hall so you can hear directly from me about this year’s budget, and I can hear directly from you about your priorities. | | |
If you’d like to participate, please join us at one of our budget town halls in the coming weeks:
Hearing from you helps ensure our final budget in June reflects the focus we’ve been fighting for, and our shared vision for the city we’re proud to call home. Please stay engaged!
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I want to share an update about our San José Animal Care Shelter (SJACS) — one that I hope comes as a welcome change.
On August 1, SJACS will move under the purview of the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department (PRNS), its original home when we launched the facility in 2004. In our City, we truly operate everything from A to Z — from the animal shelter to the zoo — and it makes sense that both now sit under the same roof, strengthening care, coordination and service.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen progress at SJACS. The division completed all 39 recommendations from the city audit I called for in 2023, and as a result, more animals are moving into homes and out of the shelter, bringing the shelter population to its lowest point in years. I want to thank our City Manager, Jennifer Maguire, for initiating this change, and the leadership within Public Works — including Director Matt Loesch — as well as the frontline staff who show up every day to deliver care and better outcomes for our dogs, cats, and rabbits, and all of the volunteers who passionately support this important work.
The move to PRNS will help build on this momentum — ensuring the division is housed in a department that not only has prior experience with this work, but already manages animal care as part of its portfolio through Happy Hollow Zoo and Emma Prusch Farm Park.
There will be more to share as we get closer to this transition, but I hope you are as excited for SJACS’ next chapter as we are. We have gotten to this point thanks to your continued advocacy, and the incredible work of frontline staff, volunteers, and rescue organizations.
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BayFC Star Wars Night
Friday, April 17th at 7:00 PM
PayPal Park
Bay FC is hosting its first-ever Star Wars™ Match at PayPal Park — featuring exclusive activations, a costume contest, and more! Help them bring the galaxy to the pitch, and find more information here.
Dancing with the Stars: Live!
Saturday, April 18th
San Jose Civic, 135 West San Carlos Street
Straight from Hollywood, see Dancing with the Stars: Live! See the glitz, glam and breathtaking performances of America’s favorite dance show with this all-new show starring your favorite pro. Learn more here.
Viva Calle San Jose
Sunday, April 19th
Eastside San Jose
Join us Sunday, April 19th as we transform 6 miles of SJ streets. Choose your own quest and bike, skate, walk, or roll from Mexican Heritage Plaza to Alum Rock Village or from Cimaron Park to Fernish Park, there are plenty of side quests to explore along this adventurous route. Get all the details here.
We Create 408
Month of April 2026
Locations Vary
Every week in April, we create! As part of Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month in April, the San José Office of Cultural Affairs is challenging San Joseans to use their creative expression every week throughout the month. Find more information, and the full list of events here.
Stars on Ice
Sunday, May 17th at 4:00 PM
SAP Center
Get ready to celebrate America’s skating superstars! Fresh off record-breaking World and National championship performances and bound for Olympic glory, the 2026 Stars on Ice tour brings the thrill of the Games to fans nationwide. Don’t miss out on the chance to catch Alysa Liu, Ilia Malinin, and other skating stars — grab your tickets here.
| | Raising a flag for Autism Awareness Month | | Earlier this week, I joined Councilmember Mulcahy for our city’s first Autism Awareness Month flag raising. Designed by SJSU’s own Martin Slyngstad, this flag is a powerful reminder of our commitment to building a community where differences are embraced, where every person has the opportunity to thrive, and where inclusion is something we practice each day. | Thank you for helping us build a cleaner, safer San José, and giving us cause to celebrate our city every day. | | | | |
