Good for the Rotary Club members who are focusing attention on
the deteriorating amphitheater at Christmas Hill Park.
Good for the Rotary Club members who are focusing attention on the deteriorating amphitheater at Christmas Hill Park.
As Jeff Orth, Rotary president, said recently, Rotarians want to help the “embarrassment” of the amphitheater’s current state to become a jewel. “This is a wonderful city and we can do better than this.”
Anyone who attended one of Gilroy’s three middle school promotion ceremonies last week knows exactly what he means. The setting is beautiful, but the facility is woefully outdated.
Brian Bowe, executive director of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, agrees.
“It seems (the amphitheater) can clearly stand to be upgraded,” Bowe told reporter Brian Babcock recently. “I think that the improvements not only benefit the Garlic Festival but the rest of the community itself.”
Bowe’s exactly right, and that’s why it’s important that the city and the Garlic Festival work with the Rotary Club to speed and smooth the way for this project.
The amphitheater was built in 1960 by the city, seats were added in 1983 and uprights were added in the 1990s to support a stage roof, but no roof was ever built. Currently, many of the wooden ties that terrace the amphitheater are crumbling and splitting. The seating is not up to modern standards. There is no way to control the gate. The concession stand is Neanderthal, and the restroom facilities stink.
A meeting of the interested parties and civic-minded folks to find a way to turn the amphitheater, one of the main venues at the Garlic Festival, into a first-rate facility is called for. Let’s leverage the inherent synergy between the efforts of the Rotary Club, the responsibilities of the city and the energy of the Garlic Festival to make this a reality.
Perhaps there is a community benefactor who would step up to the plate and make a sizeable donation for improvement in exchange for the right to name the facility – a place for music, Garlic Festival fun and the celebration of this community’s spirit. It’s a powerful combination, especially if the acoustics matched a first-class facility. Imagine a summer outdoor concert featuring the South Valley Symphony or a smooth jazz combo. It’s the perfect central location.
It would be difficult to come up with a more appropriate capital improvement project for these three organizations.
The multiphase plan put forth by the Rotary Club is a great start, but determining the priorities, the scope and the cost is something that should involve all three organizations on different levels. With everyone working together this could become a marvelous venue in the not-too-distant future.
Gilroy should not be embarrassed by the Christmas Hill Park amphitheater – it’s a beautiful setting in a wonderful city park.
