The federal government announced today that Gilroy will receive
$131,000 in stimulus funding to demolish the city’s shuttered youth
center, clearing the way for a temporary shelter Santa Clara County
Supervisor Don Gage is working to secure.
The federal government announced today that Gilroy will receive $131,000 in stimulus funding to demolish the city’s shuttered youth center, clearing the way for a temporary shelter Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage is working to secure.
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today that Gilroy will be one of 500-plus communities across the country to receive $620 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The only other cities in Santa Clara County to receive funding were Cupertino, Daly City and Milpitas, according to the HUD.
Gilroy must use its money by 2012, according to Housing and Community Development Coordinator Marilyn Roaf, who worked with HUD officials to find “a very specific project” within the city. The city does not know when it will put the project out to bid. The chosen developer will have to demolish the 78-year-old, seismically unsafe building at the corner of Sixth and Railroad streets in east downtown Gilroy and then clear the area. The project will create temporary jobs and satisfy the conditions of the federal money meant to rehabilitate affordable housing, improve public facilities and create work.
“Today, I am proud to announce that HUD has moved quickly to obligate more than $10 billion in Recovery Act funds,” said Donovan. “Nearly three quarters of our Recovery Act funds are now available to communities across the country and are being put to work creating jobs, making homes more energy efficient, and strengthening neighborhoods.”
The city will receive a reimbursement of federal dollars “very soon” after spending its own from a restricted fund. An alternate proposal the city considered beside from the youth center was the construction of an outdoor “community space” at the corner of Monterey and Seventh streets, but HUD indicated Gilroy stood a better chance applying for the youth center, Roaf said.
Santa Clara County Supervisor, former Gilroy mayor and Gilroy resident Don Gage is trying to find a way to reopen the youth center that has been closed for a year. He hopes to raise enough donations to buy the portable buildings that used to house the Southern Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Martin before it moved to Morgan Hill earlier this year.
Since closing the youth center in September, recreation officials have opened a temporary operation inside the senior center near Sixth and Hanna streets, but that venue does not offer boxing and basketball courts or give employees with the Mexican American Community Services Agency the same time to offer youth and adult outreach programs.
Gage has not said how much he expects it to cost to purchase, relocate and re-assemble 5,600 square feet worth of trailers, which would give kids the same room they had in the old building. A review of various online vendors that sell used portable buildings showed those similar to the old courthouse selling for at least $10 per square foot, but that did not include transportation and construction costs.
Along with the youth center, the city also needs to demolish the library near the senior center and a few downtown buildings along Monterey Street where the planned arts center will stand. Each site requires different surveys before bulldozers start up, such as a hazardous material study at the industrial-looking youth center that once housed PG&E, according to City Engineer Smelser. The federal grant will pay for that study, Roaf said.
In September, a city inspection revealed that hollow clay tile and brick masonry comprise the building’s walls and parapets, materials which do not comply with state earthquake standards. The city found that out from a building evaluation it commissioned before purchasing the building from PG&E in 1996, but earthquake concerns were not as prevalent part of the building code back then, city officials said last year.
