Gilroy
 – Downtown business owners are greeting the final phase of
street improvements along Monterey Street with a mix of fear and
hope.
Since the summer, the city’s historic main street has lost a
number of businesses, and many predict the
”
streetscape
”
project will make things worse before it makes them better.
Gilroy – Downtown business owners are greeting the final phase of street improvements along Monterey Street with a mix of fear and hope.
Since the summer, the city’s historic main street has lost a number of businesses, and many predict the “streetscape” project will make things worse before it makes them better.
The final phase of the project will close Monterey, between Fourth and Sixth streets, for about nine months beginning in Feb. 2006, according to a city schedule. That strip of Monterey contains the highest density of the street’s remaining businesses.
“There’s a lot of concern, primarily because of the way the last streetscape project was handled,” said James Suner, a developer and member of the Downtown Business Association.
The first two phases of the project involved widening sidewalks, planting trees, and installing decorative lamp-posts between Sixth and Eighth streets.
Those phases dragged on beyond their end-dates, Suner said, in part because “the contractor disappeared for months” at a time.
The first phase (Eighth to Seventh) lasted eight months in 2001; the second phase (Seventh to Sixth) stretched from spring 2003 to spring 2004, according to Community Development Engineer Kristi Abrams.
But she attributed delays to unexpected finds under the city’s streets.
“The most bizarre thing was an old gas tank on Seventh Street,” Abrams recalled. “It was an old highway and where now there’s a road, there used to be a gas station.”
She said the extra testing, documentation, and removal related to the gas tank was one of several factors that extended the project.
Workers will probably not encounter such large obstacles in the final phase, she said, but delays could result as they inevitably unearth undocumented storm drains and utility lines.
City Transportation Engineer Don Dey said officials are approaching the final phase in a way that remains sensitive to business owners. The plans include public outreach to businesses in March, followed by a five-month design phase ending in August. Officials hope to award a bid by Nov. and begin construction in Feb. of next year.
In the earlier phases of the project, the city only closed portions of Monterey. This time, however, they’re leaning toward a full closure.
“Obviously that’s going to be a question for the businesses to discuss,” Dey said. “If we go with a phasing plan, that lengthens out the construction of the project and that gets closer to the holiday season of 2006, which we’re trying to avoid.”
Suner agreed, but felt the city could complete the project in half the time and on a schedule more attuned to various projects. Two mixed-use buildings are going up in the “streetscape” area in the next year, and one, at the corner of Lewis and Monterey streets, began two weeks ago.
“They don’t want to invest all that money, have tenants show up, and then the city shows up the next day and starts jackhammering the street,” Suner said.
Whatever the schedule, the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Business Association plan to work with city staff to find ways to mitigate the effects of construction.
“We will do our best to keep businesses informed,” Dey said.
The final phase of the project was made possible by a $2.5 million grant, awarded in December by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
When the project is complete, shoppers will no longer have to negotiate a winding median and will have twice as much street-side parking, made possible by the use of angled parking. The city hopes to extend certain upgrades, such as lamp posts and tree plantings, down a portion of the sidestreets.
That sounds good to Steve Gearing, whose Happy Dog Pizza Company just weathered its first year in the area.
“It’s going to be beautiful when it’s all done,” Gearing said. His newest investor, Vince Lucio, completed the thought: “It’s going to be scary in between.”
