A group of protesters Friday morning showed up at a downtown San Jose event focused on real estate development in the Bay Area's largest city.
The group called Save the People San Jose walked into the Fairmont Hotel on Market Street, where the event was underway. They said they weren't there to protest; they were there to "protect."
The event, dubbed The Future of Downtown San Jose, featured Mayor Sam Liccardo as the keynote speaker along with a panel that included Alexa Arena, director of Real Estate Development for Google; Case Swenson, president of Swenson Builder; Mary Papazian, president of San Jose State University; and Erik Hallgrimson, vice chairman of commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield.
Downtown San Jose has a number of development projects under construction and still more on tap for 2020, and affordable housing activists have been rallying against what they believe is gentrification.
