SAN JOSE — Downtown San Jose now has a high-level city official who will be solely dedicated to efforts to bolster the city’s urban core, an appointment that fulfills a primary goal of the city’s mayor.
Nathan Donato-Weinstein, an official with the city’s Economic Development Department, has been named to a post whereby his sole role would be to craft and direct an overall strategy for downtown San Jose.
The downtown-specific role would enable Donato-Weinstein to focus only on downtown San Jose and its economic, retail, dining, entertainment, housing, workplace and social mosaics. For several years, Donato-Weinstein has been the business development officer with the city’s Economic Development Department.
Municipal officials hope the newly created post would help the downtown achieve this lofty version as the principal gathering place for Silicon Valley.
“This role is important to drive forward our shared goals for Silicon Valley’s true urban center,” Donato-Weinstein said. “Downtown has so much to offer already, a world-class university, arts and entertainment, innovative companies, quality transit, and of course amazing food.”
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and other city leaders envision a downtown San Jose that would become the urban core of Silicon Valley, a regional gathering place for people to live, work, dine, play and shop.
“Nathan Donato-Weinstein will help realize downtown San Jose’s potential as the premier entertainment and cultural destination of Silicon Valley,” Mayor Mahan said.
Effective April 24, Donato-Weinstein will assume the new role with the title of Downtown Manager, according to the mayor’s office.
“Nathan has a long history of supporting Downtown San Jose,” said Alex Stettinski, chief executive officer of the San Jose Downtown Association. “His deep knowledge and experience will give him the tools to be successful as a manager of downtown, and we look forward to working with him.”
The onset of the coronavirus three years ago prompted state and local government officials to orchestrate wide-ranging business shutdowns to combat the spread of the deadly bug.
The shutdowns, in turn, wiped out much of the dining and retail activity in downtown San Jose and countless other urban cores in untold numbers of cities nationwide.
Downtown San Jose and other urban city centers have been slow to recover. Companies have proceeded back to their respective offices at an uneven pace.
Vacancy rates for first-class office buildings in downtown San Jose averaged 20.4% during the first quarter of this year, according to a new report by CBRE, a commercial real estate firm.
Finding ways to revitalize downtown San Jose in a changed post-coronavirus world will be a top priority for the new city official. The path to success is likely to be varied and ever-shifting.
“The building of a city is never done,” Donato-Weinstein said. “I look forward to waking up every day thinking about how we can improve for residents, businesses and visitors. I can’t wait to work alongside the incredible private-sector, public-sector, and nonprofit-sector partners.”
The mayor emphasizes that the downtown manager must have a laser focus on the downtown’s challenges and opportunities.
“We need someone who wakes up every day thinking solely about downtown’s success,” Mahan said. “We’re fortunate to have someone with Nathan’s experience take on this huge responsibility.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com