Downtown business and property owners are grumbling about plans
to replace one of the area’s few parking lots with a new building,
but city officials are urging nay-sayers to hold out until they
hear all the facts.
Officials are billing a land swap in the works between City Hall
and the Garlic Festival Association as an all-around win that will
expand parking, fill in a vacant lot in the heart of the downtown,
and give the organizer of the city’s biggest event a more prominent
location.
Gilroy – Downtown business and property owners are grumbling about plans to replace one of the area’s few parking lots with a new building, but city officials are urging nay-sayers to hold out until they hear all the facts.
Officials are billing a land swap in the works between City Hall and the Garlic Festival Association as an all-around win that will expand parking, fill in a vacant lot in the heart of the downtown, and give the organizer of the city’s biggest event a more prominent location.
The deal would require the nonprofit festival association, which now shares a Monterey Street office with the Chamber of Commerce, to sell its barely-used rear parking lot to the city and relocate its headquarters to the city-owned lot off Lewis Street.
The relocation plans, which surfaced at a July council retreat, were greeted enthusiastically by city officials who appeared eager to snatch up a prime piece of real estate to expand public parking.
But not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea. Monday, business and property owners from the 7500 block along Monterey Street met at Gilroy Bowl to discuss the proposal, which they see as a threat to one of the few parking areas serving the historic downtown corridor.
“I don’t have a problem with the Garlic Festival building a (new headquarters) downtown,” said Steve Ashford, owner of Ashford Heirlooms on Monterey Street. “It’s a great idea. I’ve been a volunteer a long time and I’m all for them. What I’m against is building on the parking lot.”
Ashford, whose store lies just half a block from the 55-space-lot at Lewis and Monterey streets, took issue with the city plans to replace the spots with a more-distant lot behind the Chamber headquarters and a second lot on the other side of the railroad tracks. The fact that the city’s plan would add about 25 spaces to the area did not ease his concerns.
“I have always had a problem with the fact that people are going to have to cross the railroad tracks,” he said. “We have a lot of trains that go through here.”
The Lewis Street parking lot has served as home to a monthly flea market and a band venue during the July hot-rod exhibition along Monterey Street. Business owners fear the loss of the space will deal yet another financial blow to an area that has suffered with the expansion of major shopping outlets.
The proposed land swap also frustrates downtown stakeholders because they just finished paying for the lot the city now plans to sell. In July, downtown property owners made the last combined payment of $6,000 on a special tax levied against them about 25 years ago, according to City Administrator Jay Baksa. The taxes paid off bonds that officials used to purchase and build parking lots on Lewis Street site and the area behind the Chamber of Commerce. Baksa said the tax assessment poses no legal challenges to the city proposal.
Jeff Martin, a local developer and former GFA volunteer president placed in charge of the relocation efforts, sympathized with downtown business owners, but said the city must take the long view when it comes to downtown planning.
“Loss of revenue – that’s a short-term type of concept,” he said. “It’s a few times a year that (the lot) is a venue for a market. It probably doesn’t weigh as heavy as having a unified downtown. That’s not just my opinion, but that’s the opinion of the Downtown Specific Plan Task Force – that it makes the downtown more user friendly. A parking lot is just asphalt and cars – not the most attractive use.”
The GFA plans will likely involve converting the parking lot into offices and condominiums, similar to the building under construction across the street. While plans are still in the conceptual stage, Martin said the new building would likely have three stories and include street-level offices and about 25 above-ground condominiums.
The association does not plan to go into the rental business, but will sell the condominiums to help finance the cost of the project, according to Martin.
The parking lot between Monterey and Eigleberry streets that the city would gain as part of the deal is little more than a quarter of an acre, but it figures prominently in plans for downtown revitalization. The city already owns a lot immediately south of the GFA land and joining the two would roughly double the current public parking to about 100 spaces. The site is also ideally situated for a downtown parking garage, a structure contemplated in a recent parking study of the area. That plan is 10 years down the road.
“There is definitely a long and short-term issue here,” Baksa said, acknowledging short-term loss of parking in exchange for the city’s best – and perhaps only – opportunity to secure land for a future parking structure.
“If we don’t have that (GFA land), then the city has to look at buying property and buildings and that is never an easy thing to do, as we’re finding out with the cultural center – having to go through that whole exercise with eminent domain,” Baksa said. “It might be so costly you can’t do it. This swap has got short term benefits, but the biggest ones are the long term benefits.”
Baksa and Martin both expressed hope that downtown businesses would at least listen to the facts before mounting opposition to the project. City leaders have scheduled a Sept. 19 public hearing on the subject, but plan to meet informally with downtown stakeholders in the intervening weeks.
“I think it’s perhaps a little premature to protest,” said Martin, acknowledging that even with more information, “they may still disagree. Change is always difficult.”
