2015 BUSINESS WALK: Story Road
Retail economy continues to improve! Parking and traffic conges on are top concerns—Story Road also needs an organized marke ng effort The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce conducted its sixth business walk on March 10, 2015. A business walk is an opportunity for the chamber and partner organizations to get a ground level view of an area’s business climate and additionally determine the challenges and opportunities present to local business. Bridge Bank is the presenting sponsor and has been an invaluable partner in this endeavor. An additional special thanks to RJ Castro and the Story Road Business Association. In this iteration of the walk, 80 businesses were contacted and over 40 individuals volunteered their time to conduct the survey. Many teams included Spanish and/or Vietnamese translators, given the demographics of the Story Road Business Corridor. Three questions were asked by the business walkers during. They were: San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber
Food (including grocery), and Retail. Commercial included banking, services, and other business not acting as retail outlets. • How’s business? • What do you like about doing
business here? • What could be done to improve
business in the area? In order to sort through the data collected for this report, the findings have been organized into the businesses visited into three primary groupings: Commercial, Restaurant/
Restaurant/Food establishments ranged from corner taquerias to local grocery stores. Retail establishments covered a broad swath, ranging from entities such as Home Depot and Target to local jewelry stores and clothing outlets. Over the course of the walk, the area as a whole had an overall positive outlook on the economy and reported that business was either good or improving. Nearly 60% of business reported back a positive growth outlook. Roughly a third reported that business was stable and less than ten percent of business reported that business was worsening. Business owners felt the following issues, if addressed, could generally improve their business and the climate of the businesses in their areas as a whole:
2015 BUSINESS WALK Business Walk overall breakdown
erations. Those expressing a desire for improved marketing also felt that addiWhile public safety was generally a tional attractions to draw new customuniversal consideration amongst those ers to the area are critical to the longsurveyed, parking and traffic term viability of their retail efforts. congestion surprisingly emerged as the Additional takeaways on a macro level key concern that business owners believed would be the biggest catalyst point to a lack of technology penetration into these small businesses. Very to improving their bottom lines. few business surveyed had email acThose surveyed said a focused market- counts associated with their businesses ing effort is needed, especially in the (17%) and fewer than 5% had a webStory and King area, where the Tropi- site. cana shopping center has been an anchor for the Latino community for gen- Many of the businesses surveyed were
Areas of Improvements
primarily cash-based with limited acceptance of credit cards other than in the larger retail outlets or newer restaurants. There’s an opportunity here to modernize these elements of commerce and broaden markets at a generally low-cost. The data collected illustrates that the Story Road Business Corridor has geographic cleavages that paint a much different outlook for business, even within half a mile of distance. While areas such as Story & Capitol Con&nued on back page
Sponsors
Bridge Bank volunteers Allison Sacke , le , and Lexi Amundsen helped survey shopkeepers.
San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber
Story Road Sub-category breakdown: Commercial Business
Sub-category breakdown: Restaurant/Food
Sub-category breakdown: Retail
San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber
2015 BUSINESS WALK: Story Road What’s Next
While areas such as Story & Capitol face a very serious concern for additional police and increased public safety, right down the street at Story and King, there is an earnest desire for additional parking and traffic mitigation.
October 27, 2015 Alum Rock Business Walk Register at sjchamber.com
Previous Business Walks
On another front, the needs of business based on the type of business taking place also Story Road ‘s many commercial strip malls were surveyed. differ greatly. Commercial businesses along with restaurants had • Pursue Property Based a stronger desire for public safety, Improvement District to supplement while retail strongly believed that more above and/or other efforts coordination in marketing would be a boon to the community. At the end of the day, any comprehensive strategy for addressing Action Items the collective needs of businesses in Here are possible action items to this area will need to micro-target address findings from the event: efforts for geography and business • Area-wide marketing campaign type, but with the business climate gen• Private patrol paid for by businesses erally improving ,there’s reason to be to supplement police resources optimistic about this area.
Blossom Hill/Almaden Boulevard North First Street SOFA District/Downtown San Jose The Alameda Corridor Willow Glen/San Carlos Business Districts View Business Walk Reports at sjchamber.com/business-walks
Story Road Businesses Contacted Accesarios Flor Access Health Allstate Andrea San jose AT&T Banh Canh 3 Mein BBQ & Pho Binh Minh Bobo Drinks Brantano Century Pure Water Check & Go Co Hong Music Com 90 Degree Da Thano Coffee Shop Dabb Society Don Roberto Jewelers Dynasty Foot Spa Eclipse El Girasol Es4llo Michoacan San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber
Fash Fresh Pizza Fishery Supply Freeway Auto Insurance GameStop Grand Century Dental Home Depot Jamba Juice Joyeria Mar4nez KFC La Perla Taueria Leilani's Fashion Listo Lucky Star Mexico Bakery Mi Pueblo Mi Rancho Supermarket O'Reilly Auto Parts Pacific West Insurance Panda Express Patelco
Pep Boys Pollo Loco Queen Kho Bo Quickstop R&G Jewelry Rent a Center Robert Mullins Interna4onal Rosa Dental San Jose Men's Wear Saul Cepeda (Optometrist) Shell Gas Sta4on Skyvaped Smart and Final Smile World Dental Soyful Stacy's Hair Salon Starbucks Starbucks Subway
Sunshine Foot Massage T Mobile Target Thanh Bn Togos Tropicana Drugs Tropicana Liquors U-Mobile UPS Vee Verizon Wireless Vianney Vien Dong Cargo VMC Travel Vu Chuong Walgreens Wells Fargo Western Dental Wing Stop Xuyen Vo