MORGAN HILL
– People fond of Morgan Hill’s downtown should take a quick look
now because it won’t be the same in a few months. Shoppers and
diners alike will see a flurry of new-and-improved businesses,
including restaurants, a stationary store and an artist’s
gallery/co-op. Some of the plans are still under
wraps.
MORGAN HILL – People fond of Morgan Hill’s downtown should take a quick look now because it won’t be the same in a few months. Shoppers and diners alike will see a flurry of new-and-improved businesses, including restaurants, a stationary store and an artist’s gallery/co-op. Some of the plans are still under wraps.
The Downtown Mall has been sold to Manou Mobedshahi, a native of Iran and a new Morgan Hill resident who says he is intent on improving his new hometown. Mobedshahi is president of the Mobedshahi Hotel Group that came to Santa Clara Valley attention when the group bought the closed Sainte Claire Hotel in downtown San Jose in 1991 and turned it into the Hyatt Sainte Claire, refurbishing it into an updated hotel with a period feel.
The Group also owns the San Jose Airport Hyatt which gained the distinction back in 1997 of being the first hotel in the area to be wired for computer and Internet access in every room.
The Downtown Mall is an old building (it appears in pictures dated July 4, 1912) on the east side of Monterey Road. Mobedshahi also bought the parking lot behind the mall, stretching from East First to East Second streets.
The mall also does not include the Granada Theater, though Mobedshahi has taken a 30-year lease on the building, which has been closed to movie-goers since October by owners Ed and Irene Enderson. They had hoped to find a backer to refurbish the theater and bring it back to life.
Mobedshahi said recently that he didn’t know exactly what he will do with the building(s) and is open to suggestions from business owners and the public.
“I’ll be traveling around, looking for successful projects in other cities that might work for Morgan Hill,” Mobedshahi said during a recent encounter at downtown’s Thinker Toys.
One idea is to keep one Granada movie screen showing carefully selected movies but turn the other side into a related retail store or a café. Mobedshahi said he isn’t sure whether he will renovate or replace the mall building.
Other Morgan Hill downtown news
The building next to Rosy’s at the Beach also has been purchased. Developer Dave Scoffone plans to renovate the building and lease it to a restaurant group with plans for a sports bar called Sports Book. The bar will have a history of sports theme.
Sinaloa Mexican Café and Maurizio’s Italian Cuisine are about to reopen – they hope by mid-month. Sinaloa was forced into Maurizio’s old quarters at 17535 Monterey Road after a fire in June 2002 destroyed its Madrone building. Maurizio’s has moved across the street to an old building at 25 E. First St., which it remodeled.
Another developer is in escrow with the old Gunter Brothers Feed Store, on Monterey Road across from the police station and Britton Middle School. The developer’s plans for the site are being kept quiet.
El Toro Brewing Co. is working on plans to renovate the police building at Monterey Road and Main Avenue into a brew pub.
BookSmart and Thinker Toy owners Brad Jones and Cinda Meister are about to open a shop with greeting cards, candies, gifts and bunches of flowers, next to the bookstore at 17415 Monterey Road at West Second Street. The shop will be called Love Bug.
Artist Shelley Hanes is about to open the Morgan Hill Art Guild and Gallery in the little yellow house at 17265 Monterey Road. Visitors can watch a rotating collection of artists at work “with a bed and breakfast comfort,” Hanes said. Or, she said, they can grab a brush, pencils or paper, sit down and join the group.
Karen Marks has sold Piccolo’s (Italian sandwiches, pasta and juices) on East Second Street to the Second Street Coffee Exchange’s Abid and Salma Shah – the two share the ground floor of the 1905 Votaw building at Monterey Road and East Second. When Piccolo’s lease runs out, the sandwich shop will move into the coffee house.
