A core job hub in San Jose is joining a growing list of areas in the city looking to form an improvement district that would would allow businesses to pool resources to improve safety, reduce blight, and gain more exposure.
The proposed Monterey Corridor district stretches between Capitol Expressway and Alma Avenue and includes approximately 1,535 businesses that support more than 11,000 jobs and significant properties like the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and The Plant retail center.
“It is a major source of living wage jobs, home to a number of green companies and rich in business resources,” said Eire Stewart, director of property management at JP DiNapoli Companies, Inc. “Over recent years, this corridor has been struck by blight that is so common in many urban industrial areas, the proposed Monterey Corridor Business Improvement District will allow many businesses, both big and small, operating within the corridor, to take steps to protect this important industrial zone, maintaining and enhancing our environment, increasing visibility and providing additional security measures to keep our businesses safe by adopting this resolution.”
The district has proposed an annual assessment of $250 and targeted a budget of $252,000 in year one, assuming a collection rate of 65% from eligible businesses.
The funds raised, by law, must exclusively go towards the benefit of their districts.
Its budget proposes allocating 80% of the fees for cleanliness and safety initiatives, including graffiti and litter removal, pressure washing sidewalks, camera installation and maintenance and hiring additional security personnel.
“Doing business in our area has become more challenging over the years due to increasing and persistent problems with homelessness, RVs and crime,” said Beth Seibert, president of Off-Site Records Management. “It makes it difficult to attract new customers, rent out our buildings and hire new employees when the neighborhood does not feel safe. When visiting businesses in our district, homelessness, crime and safety are the very first things that the business owners cite and ask for help with.”
The Monterey Corridor first broached the idea of creating an improvement district in 2019 when it formed a working group to explore its options. The area is home to many of the city’s most important distribution centers and new manufacturers and also includes other industries like logistics, recycling, construction, engineering and rapid prototyping. City officials said that 70% of the jobs supported don’t require a four-year college degree yet pay a livable wage and include benefits in most cases.
Other notable businesses include Home Depot, Coastal Electric, Maxar Space Satellites, Capitol Drive-in, Sim’s Metal and Famous Dave’s BBQ.
Forming a business district is lengthy and requires multiple hearings at the City Council level before approval. A timeline set out by city officials indicated assessments could start in February,
After years of inactivity, San Jose has made more significant strides to help create more self-sufficient business districts as of late.
Last month, the city began the formal approval process to create the Tully Road-Eastridge Business Improvement District. If approved, it would become the first district formed in nearly 16 years.
Before the Tully Road district, San Jose had approved five others around the city since 1988, including in Downtown, Japantown and Willow Glen.
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The city has targeted creating six new districts within the next two years, including another in District 7 on Story Road.
“We’ve just seen this on Tulley as we talked about and we already have some BIDs (business improvement districts) that are much older, but to see new BIDs coming forward […] I think is a really powerful model of people self-organizing, pooling resources, self-governing and solving their own problems with support from the city,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.