Concern for the health of downtown was not enough to stop the
city council from approving a temporary library along Leavesley
Road rather than on Monterey Street.
Concern for the health of downtown was not enough to stop the city council from approving a temporary library along Leavesley Road rather than on Monterey Street.
While construction crews demolish the old downtown library near Rosanna and Sixth streets and begin building a new one on the same site this summer, residents will have to make their way to Leavesley Road near Swanston Lane in north Gilroy to get books or use the Internet. Councilmen Craig Gartman and Perry Woodward voted against the Leavesley site recommendation of the Santa Clara County Library Joint Powers Authority – which operates the library that the city owns – because they and at least one downtown developer said the council should do everything it cane to funnel the library’s 1,200 daily patrons through the struggling downtown area rather than an outlying commercial district.
“My view is that we should look a lot harder,” Woodward said. “It sure would be nice to have those people going through our downtown.”
Instead, the city will contract with Robert’s Construction’s Company to rent a 10,000-square foot building along Leavesley. The site has 70 parking spots and will be able to handle the library’s crowd, City Administrator Tom Haglund wrote in a staff report.
County Librarian Melinda Cervantes and Councilman Dion Bracco – who sits on the county library board with 10 other public officials from throughout the county – both said they spent eight months looking at downtown Gilroy and other surrounding areas but could not find a solid match in the city’s historic core.
“Leavesley’s not far off the mark,” Cervantes said, to which Woodward leaned back in his chair and rolled his eyes.
County library officials looked at other sites around the corner on Murray Avenue and on the east side of U.S. 101 on Arroyo Circle. They also considered the former Garlic Festival building downtown at 7600 Monterey Street.
The long-time developer Gary Walton, who has a vested stake – both personal and financial – in downtown Gilroy was frustrated with the decision. Walton owns a 10,000-square foot reinforced concrete building with parking near Monterey and Third streets. He also has another building on Fourth Street that is up to all current codes and could “easily (be) made available for a library.” Walton bemoaned the council’s decision as a “lost opportunity.”
“That foot traffic would have provided a significant benefit for current merchants, who are already struggling, as well as provide incentive for new businesses,” Walton wrote in an e-mail to city officials last week. “Instead, what we will apparently end up with, is a library in a strip commercial center that is not only difficult to access by car, it is even less accessible and inhospitable to the elderly, the young and non-driver.”
In an e-mail, Bracco pointed to “just the weight of the books (making) it hard to find a building suitable for a library.” Building improvements, technology hook-ups “and of course price” were among the authority’s top concerns, he wrote.
For the Leavesley project, the lease term would begin Aug. 1 and last through July 31, 2012, at a cost of nearly $135,000 a year, or $1.15 per square foot per month. The money will come from the $37 million bond voters approved last November, and the bond proceeds will reimburse the landlord for – among other improvements – repainting the walls and constructing a reading room.
