SAN JOSE — A grand idea — SoFA Sundays — started with only one sofa and a sparse crowd, but the new monthly event enjoyed an abundance of sunshine and optimism.

“We saw there wasn’t a real sofa out here so took this one out from the office to be the token sofa today,” said Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez, executive director of the MACLA arts group Sunday on First street in the south downtown section of San Jose. “This is going to take some time. It isn’t going to happen overnight.”

And so began another effort to the recapture the spirit, if not the hip grunginess, of the city’s area south of First Street that blew up in popularity in the 1990s. But where the grunge rock ‘n’ roll generation dragged out old couches and tattered love seats and listened to ear-shattering bands, Sunday’s nouveau visitors sat under bright red and yellow umbrellas, tried their hand at sidewalk chalk art and listened to mellow, recorded pop music.

“I think this is a cool idea, but I miss that season when there was something every other weekend,” said Carmelita Gutierrez, a middle-aged downtown resident who was more into rock in Spanish back in the day, but appreciated the underground spunk of the grunge generation.

“They grew up, they had kids,” said Fil Maresca, who orchestrated the original SoFA Street Fairs and Sunday’s entirely different event.

From urban planners to nightclub owners, many have tried to fulfill the SoFA districts’ promise as an art mecca and the coolest place in San Jose. The task has largely fallen today to arts institutions around the refurbished Parque de Los Pobladores.

About three years ago, the city and arts groups decided that the forgotten, triangular park dedicated to the city’s founders should become an open, urban square for artistic activities from music and poetry to fabric art and drama. The city did the spade work, beautifying the place, while the arts groups planned the programming.

The groups include the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Quilts & Textiles, MACLA and two theater companies, San Jose Stage and City Lights. When all decided recently to open their doors every Sunday, they came up with SoFA Sundays — once a month — to give their patrons something to do before or after in the new square.

Rachel Nin, a 25-year-old theater fan from Morgan Hill, had arrived early for a matinee of “The Addams Family” at San Jose Stage, which set up a tent and tables for the first SoFA Sunday. .

“I think it’s cool,” Nin said. “I don’t get to downtown San Jose often.”

Perhaps fortunately, the next SoFA Sundays will fall on the same weekends as the San Jose Jazz Festival in August and a throwback version of the SoFA street fair in September, two events she had never heard of but learned about on Sunday.

Nineteen-year-old Twinkle Webber, a college student working at MACLA this summer, was trying her hand at sidewalk chalk art at SoFA Sunday.

“I didn’t even know this area had a name,” she said. Within minutes, she and chalk-art instructor Clifton Gold, were brainstorming ideas for attracting young adults to the SoFA district: Bring in mellow hip hop musicians, dance concerts, high school art shows.

Helstrup-Alvarez pointed to some high-rise condo and apartment buildings under construction in the area for new residents, and hoped they might attract youngish, residents the arts groups want to bring into their stages and galleries.

“We want to make sure we thrive here,” she said, “and turn this arts district into an amenity.”