The Garlic Festival Association would raise its share of money
for the amphitheater by creating additional fund-raising campaigns
earmarked for the facility, Nicholls said.
GILROY – When asking city officials about the amphitheater at Christmas Hill Park, one word usually dominates their responses: “potential.”
But dominating the amphitheater itself is rotting wood boards, uprooted steel bolts and large, neglected patches of brown earth where grass used to grow.
And although it might be too late to improve the aging outdoor theater in time for the 25th Annual Garlic Festival on July 25 to 27, festival organizers are trying to illuminate the importance of investing in the future of what they call one of the city’s most overlooked and untapped resources.
“We can keep doing some temporary things each year that make (the amphitheater) OK for the festival,” said Richard Nicholls, Garlic Festival Association executive director. “But at some point we need a permanent solution. This facility can become so much better.”
Built by the city into a heavily wooded hillside slope in the southwest corner of Christmas Hill Park in the late 1960s, Gilroy’s amphitheater has undergone two major facelifts.
In 1983, the Garlic Festival Association built additional seating to bring the amphitheater’s capacity to more than 300 and in the early ’90s the upright steel structures made to support a roof over the theater’s stage were constructed, although no roof was ever erected. A temporary shade roof for the stage, sound system improvements and additional stage lighting have also been added through the years, paid for both by the Garlic Festival Association and the city.
Aside from the Garlic Festival, the amphitheater has been used for the city’s summer concert series, community theater, dance recitals, church services and school district functions.
Several upgrades to the amphitheater – including adding a permanent roof over the stage, creating more seating and installing adequate lighting for nighttime events – were originally included in the city’s $1.5 million overall upgrade of Christmas Hill Park during the summer and fall of 2002. However, final cost estimates for the amphitheater improvements soared above original projections to nearly $1 million, and no improvements were made.
The $1.5 million earmarked for the park was used to improve the softball field lights, upgrade bathrooms to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act, reconstruct several play areas and add a new water drainage system.
“There are certainly things that can be done (to upgrade the amphitheater),” said Bill Headley, the city’s facilities and park development manager. “The question is, ‘How many city resources will need to be involved?’ ”
The Garlic Festival Association and the city have worked together on several joint projects at Christmas Hill Park in the past, and both Headley and Nicholls said they think a combined venture is the best way to find the money needed to improve the amphitheater.
City money for upgrading the amphitheater would likely have to be taken both from the city’s Park Development Impact Fee Fund and the city’s increasingly burdened General Fund.
The Garlic Festival Association would raise its share of money for the amphitheater by creating additional fund-raising campaigns earmarked for the facility, Nicholls said.
“It would be great if the city and the Garlic Festival can come together on this one like they’ve done in the past,” said John Garcia, the city’s Community Service Department supervisor. “The use can definitely be there in the future, – especially with the lighting for night events. Everything is there for a great facility – the infrastructure, the wiring – now all it needs is some promotion.”
Headley agrees with Garcia’s diagnosis of the amphitheater’s potential, but said creative solutions to funding the facility’s upgrade will have to be established first.
Until then – barring an amazing economic recovery – the amphitheater will most likely remain underused and outdated, Headley said.
“There is a long list of projects on my dance card right now, and the amphitheater is not one of them,” he said. “Not to say that couldn’t change, but right now the fight for public money is extremely tough.”
