Adventuresome families chugging along U.S. 101 in their
Winnebagos already have a place to pull over and rest at the south
end of town, but now they can stretch and browse.
Gilroy – Adventuresome families chugging along U.S. 101 in their Winnebagos already have a place to pull over and rest at the south end of town, but now they can stretch and browse.
Lance McAlpine plans to open his recreational vehicle business at 5990 Travel Park Circle, near the Garlic Farm Truck Stop just off the U.S. 101 Monterey Road exit.
There are already five RV-related businesses in Gilroy, one of which is Bonessa Brothers RV, located north of Leavesley Road on Monterey Road.
A couple years ago McAlpine’s competition wouldn’t have been a big deal, Bonessa Brothers’ Sales and Finance Manager Scott Zmiewsky said, but with the economy as slow as it is now, Zmiewsky said he’ll feel the new competition.
“It matters now,” Zmiewsky said. “People don’t feel as rich as they did when they had $500,000 in equity.”
But Central California and Gilroy still remain “hot-spots” for people and their RVs because there are year-round opportunities to break out the dirt bike and head north or south.
“Right now is the season people take their RVs and go down to Pismo Beach and Glamis and Hollister Hills,” Zmiewsky said.
McAlpine RV Sales will include an office and display area on nearly two acres of property currently zoned as commercial, according to planning documents compiled by City Planner Gregg Polubinsky.
The new business will essentially replace Guaranty RV Center, which used to sit across the street from McAlpine’s lot before it shut down last year, according to an operator at Guaranty’s corporate office.
For this reason, the project won’t require an environmental impact report since it will use existing infrastructure.
McAlpine did not return calls for comment Monday seeking a time frame for construction, but his project seems to mesh well with its surroundings, according to city staff reports.
“This is an appropriate location for an RV sales operation being adjacent to a major highway,” Polubinsky wrote in a staff report.
Aside from the truck stop and U.S. 101, only undeveloped land and Monterey Road surround the slated project.
Because the property is part of a larger swath of land that used to be designated as mostly industrial with about two acres zoned as open space, anything built there requires more ornamental detail than usual.
This meant McAlpine, among other things, had to add canvas awnings over the door and all the windows of his planned office. There’ll also be an ornamental trellis on the rear wall and arbors on the remaining three sides of the square building.
Trellis or no trellis, though, McAlpine seems to have found an appropriate home.
