Gilroy
– A downtown health clinic for low-income and uninsured people
will soon open at Fifth and Monterey streets in a warehouse once
occupied by the Garlic Festival Store. The opening of the
controversial clinic, delayed for several years as a result of
design complications, is expected to take place
by early October.
Gilroy – A downtown health clinic for low-income and uninsured people will soon open at Fifth and Monterey streets in a warehouse once occupied by the Garlic Festival Store. The opening of the controversial clinic, delayed for several years as a result of design complications, is expected to take place by early October.
Gardner Family Health Network, a San Jose-based group, now operates from an office at Sixth and Princevalle streets.
Efraim Coria, chief operations officer for Gardner, said the clinic outgrew its original space shortly after opening three years ago. In 2004, the 3,800-square-foot clinic received 8,800 visits from about 2,800 clients.
“We’re at capacity at the existing location, so we cannot grow anymore,” Coria said.
Gardner officials delayed plans for the new 10,000-square-foot health clinic to ensure they did not make the same mistake.
“We’re just thinking long-term,” Coria said. “We decided to redo the plans to accommodate future growth. We didn’t want to be in the situation where three years from the date of opening we were at capacity. We decided to add a second floor and had to do structural integrity assessments to do that.”
Once open, the center will continue to specialize in family care and dental services for uninsured and low-income clients. Gardner officials have said that more than 80 percent of their patients are low-income. The clinic is one of the few medical facilities in South County that accepts Medi-Cal. Gardner representatives predict the new clinic will enable them to extend services to hundreds more patients.
But not everyone has welcomed the new clinic.
The announcement two years ago of its relocation plans upset a number of downtown merchants and some council members, who complained of a potential strain on parking and that such a use would conflict with the city’s efforts to revitalize the area. An unfounded rumor that the center would treat drug addicts added to the furor.
Council members opposed to the project’s location sought to add health clinics to a list of banned uses in the downtown area in order to block the project.
“I had no objection at all to the concept,” said Councilman Bob Dillon, who voted to ban the use in 2003. “We just didn’t like the location and a lot of the merchants downtown didn’t like the location either.”
Dillon said he would have preferred the clinic to move a block north to the former Washington Mutual building, at the corner of Fourth and Monterey streets.
The effort to block Gardner health clinic would have grouped it with such uses as body piercing and tattoo parlors and “head” (drug paraphernalia) shops. Former Councilman Peter Arellano and current Councilman Charles Morales defeated the effort. In addition to providing a needed service, they see no inherent conflict between such a use and downtown revitalization.
Both have said that the number of clients and employees will create new customers for other downtown businesses. In addition, Gardner representatives said their studies indicate most clients would travel by foot or bus, easing any potential parking concerns.
“That area is identified in the census as one that certainly needs a lot of attention,” Morales said. “Any medical services that are affordable to residents of Gilroy certainly gets my support.…The Gardner health center has really put a significant dollar amount to improve the area. When you’re talking about revitalizing downtown, that certainly will help.”
The $1.8-million project will include 1,000 square feet of retail space facing Monterey Street, a concession that clinic representatives promised to opponents of the project two years ago.
