10-14-2013 01:10 PM

New life for San Jose's Little Italy

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Joshua DeVincenzi Melander, executive director of the Little Italy San Jose Foundation, and co-founder Debbie Caminiti stand on the future site of Del Bacio, Caminiti's coffee shop that is set to open later this year in the neighborhood.




After decades of plans that went precisely nowhere, San Jose’s Little Italy is finally on its way toward becoming a bellisimo villaggio.
The nonprofit Little Italy Foundation and Los Gatos-based SV Home in recent weeks have acquired five historic – if dilapidated – homes, along with a 10,000-square-foot lot, in the compact neighborhood between Julian and West St. John streets.
On tap is a complete rehab of the turn-of-the-century properties, an Italian cultural center and museum and a wrought-iron arch branding the district, a block away from SAP Center. Construction on the rehabs is already under way.
The nascent renewal will go a long way toward breathing new life into the neighborhood, the last surviving historically significant Italian neighborhood in San Jose, said Joshua DeVencenzi Melander, executive director of Little Italy San Jose and a fourth-generation San Josean. Already, a new coffee shop, Bel Bacio, has announced it will open in the neighborhood.
“Italians contributed so much to the Valley, but there’s really no central gathering place for them to hang out in,” DeVencenzi Melander said. “The idea is, why not try to re-create that a bit here?”
Historic roots

The project is a turning point for an area – known for the beloved Henry’s Hi Life barbeque restaurant -- where grand plans have gone to die over the years.
There were once three Italian-immigrant neighborhoods in San Jose, centered on three Italian community churches, DeVencenzi Melander said. Today’s Little Italy is the sole survivor, though it was at one time much larger. About 40 homes once dotted the area, which was populated by working-class immigrants, according to the Preservation Action Council of San Jose.


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Nathan Donato-Weinstein covers commercial real estate and transportation for the Silicon Valley Business Journal.


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