Vacant San Jose downtown lot turns into new dog park
There’s good news in downtown San Jose for dog owners. A new outdoor dog park has opened in a formerly empty parking lot on South First Street between the Institute of Contemporary Art and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.
If you can’t place the location, it’s the former parking lot of the nowshuttered Emile’s restaurant, which had its entrance on South Second Street. In recent years, it really had become an eyesore and a target for taggers and dumping. The San Jose Downtown Association and its Property-Based Improvement District partnered with Urban Community, which owns the lot, to spruce it up with paint, new hanging lights and the dog park. The SoFA Pocket Park dog park opened Thursday morning, with pooches large and small arriving with their owners to try it out. “We wanted to do an amenity for the community, especially with all the new residents coming in,” said Marie Millaries, the Downtown Association’s street life manager. “Any green space is so important right now, so this was a natural idea.”
The dog park will be open 7 a.m.-8 p.m., with masks and social distancing — for people — enforced. The space is still “in progress,” so a big opening event won’t occur until April. And the dog park is just the start. Veggielution, the community farm nonprofit at Emma Prusch Farm Park, is working with an outfit called Farmscape to turn the rest of the space into an urban demonstration garden. When it’s done — the summer solstice is the target — Veggielution also will have a farmstand and its East Side Grown food truck at the location.
That’ll be a great outdoor attraction for the SoFA District, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic eases and visitors can return to the district’s galleries, restaurants and other events.
MORE TIME TO HELP >> Good news for all interested in Opera Cultura’s Musician Challenge Grant, which I wrote about in a recent column. The effort to pay musicians as part of the company’s upcoming Mi Camino projects has gotten good response, and the deadline to donate has been extended to March 15. Go to operacultura.org for details.
A MOVE FOR LIFEMOVES >> Menlo Park-based LifeMoves has announced that Aubrey Merriman will take over as CEO in April, succeeding Bruce Ives at the nonprofit that helps shelter the homeless in the Bay Area.
“As someone who speaks from early lived experiences with poverty, housing and food insecurities, I am drawn to serving marginalized populations, who have incredible obstacles to overcome, unfathomable resilience and breakthrough potential to unleash,” said Merriman, a San Jose resident who most recently served as the CEO at Boys & Girls Clubs of North San Mateo County.
BILL’S BACKYARD RETURNS: AN
OTHER SIGN OF THINGS GETTING BETTER >> The Children’s Discovery Museum in downtown San Jose will reopen Bill’s Backyard, its outdoor educational space, to the public starting March 5. You might remember that it was open for about two months last fall before the COVID-19 spike forced everything to close again.
Before it opens to the public, though, members will be able to visit during the next two weekends.
Go to cdm.org for details.