Though muffled by anxieties about the fate of an arts center,
residents sent a clear message Wednesday night to officials mulling
the purchase of Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park:
”
Buy it and run.
”
Gilroy – Though muffled by anxieties about the fate of an arts center, residents sent a clear message Wednesday night to officials mulling the purchase of Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park: “Buy it and run.”
“If you want to buy an acre of land in Gilroy you’re going to pay a million dollars,” said Eleanor Villarreal, a resident and local Realtor. “We have the opportunity to maintain a jewel of Gilroy for $13 million, plus or minus. You do the math. It’s $23,000 and change an acre. It’s such a deal. I say, ‘City of Gilroy, grab that park and run.'”
“I agree with that lady,” said Tom Lewis, a 60-year-old docent who gives tours of the park’s manicured gardens off Hecker Pass Highway.
“Buy it and run,” he said. “If I could find a couple guys to go in on it with me, I’d buy it.”
The 90-minute meeting Wednesday night attracted more than 50 residents, many of them past and present public officials, hungry for details on how the city plans to purchase the 536-acre park. Officials estimate the purchase will cost the city between $13.1 million and $25.4 million, depending on the type of financing plan used to purchase the land.
Of three alternatives, the use of nearly $9 million earmarked for a future arts center caused the greatest concern.
“I know (Gilroy) Gardens is a great deal,…but if it’s going to interfere with the arts center, I don’t think we should even consider it,” said Bruce Morasca, head of the Theater Angels Art League.
Morasca and other arts enthusiasts repeated the concern in the face of assurances that any arts center funds used for the purchase must be paid back. The arts facility, originally expected to open by 2010, has been delayed as the city reviews construction costs and puts together a new business plan.
“Eight million dollars is not enough” for an arts center, Mayor Al Pinheiro told Morasca. “If today we decided to forget the gardens, our arts center is not going to get done any faster because we don’t have the numbers or information for which we are waiting.”
Two other financing options include borrowing funds from the city’s fleet, information technology, and other funds, or issuing public bonds financed by the city’s general fund. Officials say they might resort to some combination of the three.
At the same time, they are touting the benefits of the purchase. In addition to saving $25 million on a future regional city park and public works building, officials say they are exploring the possibility of defraying the purchase price by selling 350 acres of the park’s land for open space preservation. Additional revenues might come from leasing 70 acres where the theme park now operates back to the nonprofit board that governs Gilroy Gardens.
The nonprofit park has struggled to stay out of creditors’ hands since it opened seven years ago. Its economic position improved last year with the completion of a financial restructuring that reduced its debt load from $70 million to $12.4 million. Though the park has earned more than $1 million in profits for the last few years, city officials remain anxious it could fall prey to developers if it fails to beef up its reserve funds by 2008, as required under the terms of the restructuring plan.
The financing plan under discussion at City Hall would give officials immediate control of the park’s land by locking up $13.1 million up front in an escrow account. The sum includes $12.4 million to pay off the park’s outstanding bonds plus interest through 2010, when the bonds can be bought back regardless of investors’ wishes. Officials predict that most bondholders will hold on to their tax-free, high-interest investments until forced to sell.
If the purchase is completed, the park will become immediately available for city use, including an amphitheater and pavilion hailed as a boon for the arts community.
Shirley Willard, a member of the city’s arts and culture commission, spoke at the meeting of a “positive synergy” between a city-owned Gilroy Gardens and the future arts center.
“The citizens of Gilroy are too wise to let this slip through their fingers, and I don’t think they will,” she said. “I think we can have both. We just have to work smart.”
Residents will have a second chance to voice opinions on the proposed purchase at an August 6 city council meeting. Officials plan to take a final vote on the deal in September.
