Blighted downtown San Jose buildings get another year older

Morning walks are supposed to be invigorating. But a recent stroll I took around downtown San Jose this week was rather depressing. Sauntering over to the former Lawrence Hotel on San Fernando Street, I paid my respects on a grim anniversary — four years since a devastating fire hollowed out the historic building on Jan. 7, 2021.

A colorfully painted, covered pedestrian walkway was installed last year, replacing an ugly chain-link fence that blocked the sidewalk in front of the 1893 building for three years. Now, at least, people can walk between Second and Third streets without being forced into the bike line.

Little else seems to have been done. All that’s left of Cinebar is the sign, a deteriorating tombstone memorializing San Jose’s most famous dive bar, a joint that anchored that stretch for nearly a century. Social Lady, a wine and cocktail lounge aimed at a female audience, was only open for two years before the fire; its sign has been hanging up over an empty space for twice as long.

And this is just one of many blighted buildings downtown that have become eyesores. You’ve got the former Bo Town restaurant on South Second Street, which was torched twice last year, the leftover debris of two twice-burned houses on North Fourth Street, and the charred remains of another unoccupied building on North 13th Street. (As a property owner, the city of San Jose isn’t blameless either, with burned buildings on West St. John Street that need to be dealt with.)

That’s not even getting into the buildings that are just boarded up, in some cases — like the former Emile’s restaurant or the First Church of Christ, Scientist — for a decade or more.

Now, we know a lot of these sites are planned for development and that development is waiting on financing or trying to hurdle other obstacles. Owners are being incentivized by fines and other methods to get something done, I’m told. But the clock is ticking: Downtown San Jose is hoping to draw a lot of out-of-town visitors in 2026 with the Super Bowl and World Cup games at Levi’s Stadium.

Wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have to navigate around burned-out buildings?

IT’S A WONDERFUL SCHEDULE: Alright, it looks like one of my humorous predictions for 2025 is already dashed. Turns out, the Stanford Theatre is not switching to an all Instagram video program next month but is instead starting a Frank Capra festival this weekend that’ll run through mid-February.

The tribute to the movies’ maestro of Americana opens with a double feature of 1937’s  “Lost Horizon” and 1932’s “The Bitter Tea of General Yen” on Jan. 10-12 and will continue with classics including “It Happened One Night” (Jan. 25-26), “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (Feb. 1-2) and “It’s a Wonderful Life” (Feb. 13-16). As a special treat, the great Dennis James will be at the Stanford’s Mighty Wurlitzer for a pair of silent films from 1928, “That Certain Thing” on Jan. 18, and “Power of the Press” on Jan. 19.

Get the full schedule at www.stanfordtheatre.org.