GILROY
– Debbie Costanzo was as excited as anyone in Gilroy when she
heard a Target and a Michaels and a Barnes
&
amp; Noble were moving into the empty lots next to her Brem Lane
patio furniture store.
The extra traffic east of U.S. 101 didn’t represent congestion
and delays for her. Rather, it meant an influx of potential
customers.
GILROY – Debbie Costanzo was as excited as anyone in Gilroy when she heard a Target and a Michaels and a Barnes & Noble were moving into the empty lots next to her Brem Lane patio furniture store.
The extra traffic east of U.S. 101 didn’t represent congestion and delays for her. Rather, it meant an influx of potential customers.
Nearly a year after construction of the Gilroy Crossing retail development began, Costanzo isn’t happy at all. Instead, she’s as hard-pressed a business owner as they come because, like other retailers on the tiny road tucked just south of the big box retailers, business is down.
“For the past six months, I haven’t even been able to cover my overhead costs,” said Costanzo, standing amongst varieties of teak wood furniture on her Pacific Patio & Garden showroom floor.
“I don’t have exact numbers I can give you, but I know business is down,” said Bob Weiler, owner of Pacific Truck and Hardware at 6700 Brem Lane.
Costanzo and Weiler are not complaining about the big box stores. They don’t believe the giant retailers are pulling business from them since most of the products or services offered at their Brem Lane stores are not available at, say, Target or Lowe’s.
Instead, Costanzo and Weiler are complaining about the impacts from the construction of those stores.
Road detours, damaged temporary street signs and other typical construction nuisances have made it difficult for customers to find their way to Brem Lane, they say.
“Whenever someone comes in here, the first thing they say is ‘I can’t believe I finally found you guys.’ ” Costanzo said.
Weiler has noticed the same.
“People see us from the freeway, but then they don’t know how to get here,” he said.
Complicating matters for Brem Lane retailers is the lack of a street sign bearing their street’s name. In fact, the street which turns into Brem Lane, Holloway Road, has no signage either.
Completing a trifecta of complications is that Brem Lane used to run from Highway 152 past the Brem Business Park stores. Now, Camino Arroyo is the road that connects to the highway. Camino Arroyo runs past the Target strip mall where a right turn puts drivers on Holloway Road. Holloway bends south and becomes Brem Lane roughly a quarter mile down the road.
In other words, not only were potential customers negotiating detours during construction, they were learning new roads once Target construction was completed.
“I really don’t understand the difficulty people are having finding those businesses,” said Bill Lindsteadt, head of Gilroy’s economic development corporation. “It’s a matter of people getting used to it, I suppose.”
Navigation should get easier, says Kristi Abrams, the city’s traffic engineer. Signs for Holloway Road and Brem Lane are due to arrive next week.
After receiving inquiries from The Dispatch regarding the absence of signage, Abrams checked into the matter this week. She said the construction company forgot to add the Holloway and Brem signs to an order list.
“It was an oversight,” Abrams said.
For Weiler, the oversight is insult added to injury. He claims that upward of eight times, workers inadvertantly damaged his phone lines.
“First, customers can’t find me. Then, they can’t call me for directions,” Weiler said.The harsh realities of Brem Lane come at a tenuous time for the city as its retail complexes continue to expand and will soon add a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Anti-Wal-Mart activists portend doom for small retailers on the east side of Gilroy if the giant retailer opens the super-sized, grocery-selling version of its regular store.
In the case of Wal-Mart, opponents say unfair competition practices will doom the little-guy shops. Now, construction issues may be added to the laundry list of concerns since the 20-acre store will only add to the mix of roads, construction hassles and big box retail stores that dissect Brem Lane from the rest of Gilroy.
Lindsteadt said he may look into the potential for putting up additional Brem Lane signs underneath or next to road signs along Highway 152 and Camino Arroyo. The signs for instance could denote that Holloway Road, Brem Lane or additional businesses are ahead.
Abrams said it could be explored, but there would be no easy answer, especially if there is a reference to businesses on the signs.
“It would be an improper use of public funds,” Abrams said. “You can’t put up a sign for one set of businesses and not put up signs for other businesses elsewhere in town.”
Abrams said additional road signage would make the most sense on Highway 152, bringing the need for Caltrans approval into the mix.
“We could look into putting signs on Camino Arroyo, but once you’re there, you’ve probably found Holloway and Brem.”
For the business operators on those roads, only time will tell.
