GILROY
– A Gilroy icon retail shop in the heart of downtown – The
Garlic Festival Store – has sold its Monterey Street building for
$900,000 to the health care company that in recent months has been
the source of intense controversy between competing downtown
interests.
GILROY – A Gilroy icon retail shop in the heart of downtown – The Garlic Festival Store – has sold its Monterey Street building for $900,000 to the health care company that in recent months has been the source of intense controversy between competing downtown interests.
Gardner Family Health Network confirmed Monday it have closed escrow with store owners Tom Reed and Caryl Simpson. And last week, the health care company began its $1 million dollar renovation of the 10,000-square-foot site next to Hampton Court Antiques and across from Garlic City Coffee and Tea.
Now, the retail business that served as an example of the kind of shop activists wanted in a revitalized downtown is just a vestige of its parent company – Randan Corporation – which still makes garlic products. And the building that once sold items from garlic braids and garlic cookbooks to garlic-flavored peanut brittle and ice cream is gutted, on its way to being the new location for Gardner patients that have gone to the firm’s 700 W. Sixth St. office for roughly the past two years.
“There’s definitely a sense of relief for us right now,” said Efrain Corria, chief operating officer for Gardner Family Health Network. “Once it’s all said and done, I think the community is going to realize this will be a benefit to everyone.”
When news of Gardner’s plans broke this summer, some downtown business owners had decried the Garlic Festival Store’s move from its 7526 Monterey St. site. Initially spurred on by false rumors that a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic was coming, property owners and business operators claimed that putting something other than a retail shop in that prime location would spell doom for a downtown that’s trying to rebuild itself.
By late September, a high-profile antique dealer, Charles Coachman, left Gilroy for downtown Morgan Hill. Coachman, who unsuccessfully tried to lobby City Council to ban health care clinics from moving into the core of downtown, claimed his business would slowly lose money if it remained in Gilroy.
Gardner officials and Councilmen who supported the clinic claimed that the presence of the health care facility would bring added foot traffic to downtown. With the added people, they argued, there would be increased spending downtown.
Today, nearly five months after the Garlic Festival Store announced its closure, downtown opinions about the health care clinic still vary.
“When people go to a health clinic, they’re usually not feeling too good. They don’t go there, get a magic pill and start shopping,” said Joe Duarte, owner of Monterey Street Antiques.
Duarte said he can’t imagine his business being helped by medical and dental patients, many of them low-income, coming to downtown regularly. Gardner caters to low-income patients by accepting MediCal and providing sliding scale fees bases on income levels. Gardner also serves patients with PPOs (Preferred Provider Organizations).
“I just don’t picture that part of society helping (the economy),” Duarte said. “The antique business depends on people who can afford some frills for their friends and family. Maybe the restaurants (downtown) can benefit from the clinic. Going out for a good meal might be a frill low-income people can afford.”
For Garlic City Coffee and Tea barista Matt Reed, judging the impact of the health care clinic will be a matter of “wait and see.”
“In the three years I’ve been here downtown has been so topsy-turvy,” Reed said. “With the bad rap downtown gets in the local media and in people’s minds, it’s going to be hard to dig itself out of the hole it’s in right now whether or not there’s a health care clinic here.”
Gardner officials have been dead set on turning that rap into a positive reputation. They have stressed that the existing Gardner clinic on Sixth Street has been a good neighbor. And, beyond the economic impact they believe the clinic will have, they say the new facility will be a positive aesthetic impact, too.
“The whole thing is going to be refurbished and repainted,” Corria said. “Except for the mural (which depicts Gilroy’s agricultural heritage), that stays.”
For Mayor Al Pinheiro, Gardner’s arrival means the downtown community needs to move past the past.
“Downtown may be mixed about it, but the reality is they’re going in and now is the opportunity to work together,” Pinheiro said. “They went through the process, some of us let them know that’s not the best place for a clinic … but now it’s water under the bridge. Let’s work together as good neighbors.”
Part of Gardner’s agreement with the city calls for the clinic to be fronted by 1,000 square feet of retail space. So far, Corria said no one has made an offer to rent the space.
“There was interest from a retail pharmacy, but there was no opportunity to meet with them,” Corria said.
Gardner does not figure to open the new clinic until summer 2004.
The retail frontage was promised by Gardner CEO Reymundo Espinoza to appease downtown interests and Councilmen who believe the area is best suited for retail shops. Espinoza is under no obligation, beyond his own word, to do so.
“We would consider doing anything to keep the peace,” Espinoza told Council back in September.
Espinoza never made any guesses about what type of retail shop he would lease the space to, but said a pharmacy or nutrition store were possibilities.
According to City Planner Gregg Polubinsky, Gardner’s designs show space for retail, evidence the company has every intention of staying true to its word.
Corria enthusiastically describes his company’s other plans for the exterior and interior of the two-story building. Corria said in addition to the repainted store front outside, walls for medical and dental offices will soon be constructed and new floors will be put in.
Corria said an elevator will be installed to get patients to the second floor, but described the interior of the building as “an open area.”
“Think of it as a big mezzanine in front of you when you walk in,” Corria said.
Even if the clinic brings economic and aesthetic upgrades to downtown, it remains unlikely Monterey Street – between roughly Third and Old Gilroy streets – will be home to more clinics.
After the Gardner facility won approval, City Council passed an ordinance banning medical clinics from the ground floor of any retail building in the core of downtown unless they get a Conditional Use Permit – approved at the discretion of City Council. That ordinance was effective beginning last week.
