City council approves $62,000 purchase for about 13 parking
spaces
GILROY
Parking downtown just got a little easier.
The Gilroy City Council Monday unanimously approved the purchase of a vacant lot downtown to provide additional parking.
Milias Apartments, located on the corner of Monterey and Sixth streets, will sell its sliver of pavement on Eigleberry Street between Fifth and Sixth streets to the city for $62,000. The lot is just smaller than half a basketball court and adjoins an existing city parking lot to the north, part of which the city purchased from the Garlic Festival Association last year.
Mayor Al Pinheiro said Thursday this was just another step in providing parking for residents and visitors who patronize downtown, and Facilities and Parks Development Manager Bill Headley encouraged the purchase in a memo he wrote to City Administrator Jay Baksa last month.
When broken down per square feet, the price of the Milias property is about $3 cheaper per square foot than the larger parking lot next door, half of which the city bought from the Garlic Association last year for about $250,000, according to city figures.
After the city bought the Garlic Association lot, the swath of pavement officially joined an existing city parking lot to the south and brought the total number of public parking spaces behind the Chamber of Commerce building to about 100. The new contiguous lot will add about 13 spaces to that total, according to square footage calculations, but depending on the occupancy of the Milias Apartments, up to 10 of those spots could be reserved for its tenants.
Aside from the new sliver of parking, the capacious, rectangular lot outside CalTrain along Monterey Street between Seventh and Ninth streets remains the city’s largest parking area. Six smaller square lots, including the most recent purchase, speckle the downtown corridor along Monterey and Eigleberry streets.
Any extra breathing room is a good thing, said Pinheiro, who said it would not make any sense to leave the lot empty and unused when he and the city council are trying to breathe new life into the downtown corridor.
The Garlic Association is relocating from the Chamber of Commerce building to a three-story building across the street on Lewis Street.
