Paint on Old City Hall won’t stick after running afoul of
planners
Gilroy – After saying yes to filling historic old city hall with bamboo fencing, model airplanes, palm trees, a water fountain and a Volkswagen full of salsa, city planners drew the line Friday at painting the outside hot pink.
The transformation of Gilroy’s most architecturally important building from Flemish baroque to tropical paradise is almost complete. Restaurateur Jim Angelopoulos has been busy remodeling the building in time for the early November opening of Chips N’ Salsa, a family-style Mexican restaurant that will attempt to become the first successful eatery at the old city hall site.
Inside, the walls are covered in bamboo and splashes of bright purple, green, yellow and blue. The courtyard is decorated with a large mural depicting jungle life. Menus, featuring a drawing of a barrel of monkeys, have been printed (the chile colorado is $10; a lengua quesadilla will cost you $5). Friday, a 15-foot sign was hung from the buttress built to hold the building up after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
All the changes have been approved by the city, but Thursday, Angelopoulos had the buttress beneath the sign painted hot pink and finally ran afoul of Gilroy’s building code.
“We’re going to have him repaint it, bring back the earth tones,” Gilroy planner Gregg Polubinsky said after seeing the hot pink paint. “It’s not appropriate to an historic site. It doesn’t complement it.”
Polubinsky stressed that he doesn’t see anything inherently wrong with hot pink, but it doesn’t belong on the front of a 100-year-old building.
“Downtown we do it on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “If someone used that color where it was appropriate, as an accent color, we would have to see how it complements the building.”
Angelopoulos’ lease with the city prohibits him from altering the building’s historic structure or fixtures. The buttress has been in place since the earthquake and protects the integrity of the building’s brick structure.
Mike Dorn, the city administrative services director, manages the property. He said Angelopoulos has much more flexibility inside the building than out, which, except for the buttress, still looks as it did when the city hall was built.
Dorn denied Angelopoulos’ request to repaint the building’s trim with bright colors and would not allow an outdoor neon sign, but approved a plan to turn the building’s interior pillars into palm trees.
“My criteria was that the interior was pretty much fair game, but if he’s going to hit wood, he needs to tell me exactly which pieces,” Dorn said. “We were trying to make that buttress disappear and not be visible. That’s why we painted it that blah yellow.”
Angelopoulos said he painted the buttress hot pink to get passersby to notice the restaurant on a corner that been home to a succession of failed businesses since 1989.
“It’s gone through so many changes that after a while people stop paying attention,” Angelopoulos said. “I don’t think the city wants any more turnover in this place. They’re lucky to have someone in here who knows how to operate a restaurant.”
Angelopoulos’ family has run successful eateries in San Jose and owns the Scrambl’z diner in Morgan Hill, a spot known for its family atmosphere and wacky decor. While he’s intent on fulfilling his vision for Chips N’ Salsa, Angelopoulos said he understands the importance of preserving old city hall, and he quickly agreed to paint over the hot pink.
“My biggest concern with the building is that we’re not touching its historical significance. We’re being very careful with the building,” he said.
To raise the restaurant’s profile, Angelopoulos will paint the planters, add exterior lighting and install a few flags to “add movement.” Inside, there will be a space dedicated to the history of the building, with photographs of the way things were.
“We’re trying to finish a room of old photographs and artwork of old city hall so people can see what it looked like before,” he said. “We want to respect that and put in a place where people can look at a little history.”
Fellow restaurateur Louie Kalivitas, who runs Harvest Time across Monterey Street from old city hall, said he appreciates Angelopoulos’ efforts to liven up the moribund Gilroy downtown.
“It will be good for downtown. I wish they would put in 10 restaurants and make it like Santana Row in San Jose,” Kalivitas said. “And for what the guy has in mind, that’s what the colors should be. He’s going to serve authentic Mexican food so he should use authentic Mexican colors.”
