GILROY
– A railroad museum project some say would help revitalize
downtown Gilroy is in serious jeopardy, even after a face-to-face
meeting between key players last week.
Union Pacific Railroad is days away from leasing the last five
available acres of a lot between Ninth and Old Gilroy streets,
where some hoped the museum would go.
GILROY – A railroad museum project some say would help revitalize downtown Gilroy is in serious jeopardy, even after a face-to-face meeting between key players last week.
Union Pacific Railroad is days away from leasing the last five available acres of a lot between Ninth and Old Gilroy streets, where some hoped the museum would go. Unless, the city can work out a potentially complicated joint-use deal with the future renter, Gilroy’s hopes of having a high-profile antique train museum in downtown are all but dead.
The company that wants to lease the lot is a rail-to-truck shipping company. Because the company would only need a small office and a spot alongside the tracks for trucks to fill their loads, there is a glimmer of hope that the property can be sublet for museum uses.
“It’s still breathing, but there’s only a little bit of life left,” said Bill Lindsteadt, Gilroy’s economic development director.
Lindsteadt said he did not know the name of the rail-to-truck shipping company, and he would approach them only if they sign the lease. A Union Pacific spokesman did not say the name of the company within a company statement left on a Dispatch telephone answering machine.
Even if the shipping company backs out on the lease, the potential to have a train museum on the downtown Gilroy lot is slim.
Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley, in a company message Friday, reiterated prior statements that the largest railroad company in North America did not want to sell or lease land for the museum project.
“We still do not want to release that property to museum use,” Bromley said. “We think we have better uses for it for our own commercial needs and for possible operational uses. We want to hang on to that property for our own utilization.”
Lindsteadt would not disclose details, but said he has been approached by another potential renter who was interested in a joint-use deal with the museum. Lindsteadt said he would work on that prospect only if the shipping company lease falls through.
Rod Diridon’s nonprofit organization, the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation, wants to develop and operate the museum using 3,000 tons of railroad artifacts. The artifacts include antique locomotives, a six-stall roundhouse, a turntable and a water tower.
Diridon, who is known as Silicon Valley’s father of transit and has a San Jose train station named in his honor, selected Gilroy, San Jose and Santa Clara as three potential sites for his pet project.
Since Diridon announced his plan to refurbish antique trains and historic railroad buildings – and use them to open a museum – he has called Gilroy the “ideal” spot for the project. On Friday, Diridon distanced himself from the effort to bring the museum to Gilroy.
“This is up to Bill (Lindsteadt) and Union Pacific,” Diridon said. “They have talked about integrating the shipping company with the museum, but this reduces the viability of the Gilroy site.
“We’re not pushing for anything. If the lot is not naturally and easily available, then there are other options in the county.”
The total UP site in Gilroy is a 12-acre parcel (the museum would use at least two acres of the site) with access to existing railroad tracks, making special excursions on the antique trains possible. Diridon has said the San Jose and Santa Clara lots face obstacles – such as too far a proximity from train tracks and awkward lot size.
According to Bromley, the San Jose property is the only parcel the railroad company wants to sell. He said, like in Gilroy’s case, that Union Pacific’s Santa Clara property is not on the bargaining table.
City officials and downtown activists have until March to work out a plan to bring Diridon’s museum to Gilroy. In November, Santa Clara County extended, by four months, a deadline mandating Diridon move railroad artifacts out of the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds where they’ve resided since the late ’90s.
Diridon has been searching for a museum site ever since Santa Clara County told him he had to. The county wants to use the valuable fairgrounds land for a more lucrative project, such as a hotel.
Gilroy City Councilmen have taken a lukewarm approach to the project despite their loud calls for downtown revitalization.
At the annual City Council retreat Friday – where Lindsteadt updated dais members regarding the project – no one directed Lindsteadt to search for another viable location. Nor did Council show interest in approaching the shipping company with a joint-use deal.
“This was my concern from the beginning,” Councilman Roland Velasco said regarding the potential lease between UP and the shipping company. “I didn’t want to raise the community’s expectations (for a downtown train museum).”
Velasco, a policy adviser to Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, warned fellow council members in September that Diridon is making his museum plans based on funding grants that have not yet been won and volunteer contractors who rarely stick to firm work schedules. Velasco worried that downtown Gilroy would become a dumping ground for old train materials no one wanted to store.
