One of Gilroy’s most iconic venues is getting a facelift
– and just in time for its biggest three days of the year.
One of Gilroy’s most iconic venues is getting a facelift – and just in time for its biggest three days of the year.
The Christmas Hill Park Amphitheater, an entertainment staple for the Gilroy Garlic Festival and frequented by residents for concerts and graduations, will receive approximately $350,000 in renovations thanks to donations from Bill and Don Christopher of Christopher Ranch and the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association.
New seating areas, revamped walkways and the construction of a large shade covering will highlight the remodeling, which is expected to be completed sometime in June, said Garlic Festival Executive Director Brian Bowe.
“It’s something that needed to be done, and it’s going to be good for the festival and the city,” Bill Christopher said.
The Christophers’ donations total $200,000, while the Garlic Festival Association donated $150,000, said Bowe, who will serve as project manager for the renovations.
The Gilroy City Council and the Park and Recreation Commission formally accepted the donation April 4. Christmas Hill Park is owned by the City of Gilroy.
Bowe said the $350,000 figure was the project’s predicted total cost.
“That’s my best guestimate until the renovations are complete,” he said.
Those renovations amount to nothing short of architectural cosmetic surgery.
The aging, splintered wooden seating area and rocky dirt pathways will be replaced with concrete, Bowe said.
Bill Headley, City of Gilroy parks and landscape supervisor, said the seats were last updated more than 25 years ago.
New sod patches will be planted in between the concrete seating rows, Bowe said, preserving a classic, grassy touch the amphitheater currently features.
“It will still have a soft, parklike feel,” Bowe said.
Wooden retaining walls will be replaced by interlocking manufactured stone walls and a sound mixing stage will be installed in the middle of the refurbished seating area.
Perhaps most anticipated will be the construction of a 6,650-square-foot covering to protect spectators from the festival’s beaming summer sun. The covering will stretch more than 20 feet high and spread out over nearly all of the venue’s middle and lower seating sections.
“The shade is going to be a huge improvement,” Bowe said. “Shade’s always at a premium during the festival.”
Dion Bracco, councilman and lifelong Gilroyan, said having that extra shade likely would bring more visitors to the amphitheater during the festival.
“Anybody that’s ever been out there for the Garlic Festival knows how hot it gets,” Bracco said. “The shade will be nice.”
He also liked that the city wouldn’t be using its own money to pay for the updates.
“It’s great to see that it’s going to be fixed up. It shows its years of use. It’ll be nice to see it fixed up and made attractive again, especially at no cost to the city,” Bracco said.
Jennifer Speno, former festival president and 1987 Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival Queen, said the renovation had been “due for a long time.”
“I think it’s wonderful that the amphitheater is going to be refurbished and get some necessary updates,” she said. “It has multiple benefits for everyone.”
Speno said the amphitheater invoked many fond memories of past Garlic Festivals – even when shade wasn’t always likely.
“To me, what comes to mind is sitting there in the amphitheater seats and you’re watching or you’re dancing and you just get to enjoy it,” she said. “You just remember those fun times. To see it refurbished is just an excellent choice.”
The project had been shelved for years due to a lack of funding, said David Stubchaer, City of Gilroy senior civil engineer. He said the recent donations finally made the project possible.
The city hired Bellinger Foster Steinmetz, a Monterey-based architectural design firm, roughly a decade ago to design the amphitheater’s renovation plans, Bowe said.
The city later handed the plans off to the Garlic Festival Association, which hired Mitch Chuck of Gilroy’s Perma-Green Hydroseeding, Inc. as the project’s general contractor, Bowe said.
City crews currently are improving the parking lot near the amphitheater and ridding the area of high-maintenance railroad ties, Stubchaer said, though that project was funded by a state grant and is separate from the amphitheater project, he said.
Headley said city crews would not have a direct role during construction, but the City of Gilroy would assist in the permit process and ensure building code and site safety procedures were followed.
Bowe said construction crews were ready to being the renovations, pending the city’s go-ahead.
“As soon as I get the green light from them, we are mobilized and ready to go,” he said. “I am hoping that we can break ground any day now.”
