Gilroy
– The Pacheco Pass Shopping Center will bulge further east by
fall 2005, when Old Navy and a host of other new stores open.
Gilroy – The Pacheco Pass Shopping Center will bulge further east by fall 2005, when Old Navy and a host of other new stores open.
The opening of Chuck E. Cheese’s at the beginning of the year kicked off the newest phase of development, which will involve the creation of 95,000 square feet of retail space east of Camino Arroyo and north of Highway 152.
Old Navy will serve as a “junior anchor” for the new area, said George Akel, a member of Newman Development Group that is developing the new phase. The eastern section also will include Fashion Bug, Famous Footware and Home Goods.
Newman Development plans to create another area of mixed retail and restaurants on the eastern edge of Camino Arroyo, facing the future Wal-Mart Supercenter. The big-box, set to open in the summer, will eat up 220,000 square feet of space — one third of the land available for development in Pacheco Pass.
Akel is confident about choosing Gilroy as a site to build.
“It’s an incredible regional draw,” he said. “Everything I’ve heard from retailers that have opened has been very, very good. It’s become ground zero for that entire area.”
In the next year, a string of new restaurants will crop up along the south side of Highway 152, taking up the last remaining space of the 475,000 square feet originally available in Gilroy Crossing. Motorists crossing the 10th Street overpass can already see Johnny Carino’s under construction, to be followed in coming months by Mimi’s restaurant. The two remaining restaurant “pads” have been snapped up as well, according to Gilroy city planner Melissa Durkin, who received development applications in recent weeks from Arby’s and Famous Dave’s barbecue restaurant.
The era of big-box stores and major retailers began about four years ago with the opening of Home Depot and Staples, to the north of Leavesley Road. Those stores set off a chain reaction that led to the openings of Office Max and Petco, followed by the explosion of retail stores to the south.
The commitment of county monies to expand Highway 152 paved the way for Costco and Lowe’s to open stores in Pacheco Pass. Target, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble and others followed suit in the last few years.
Since the beginning of Gilroy’s commercial boom in 1996, the city’s retail space has grown by 2.2 million square feet. Annual taxable retail sales have grown from $600-million to $1.1-billion, in 2003.
City officials expect the new additions at Pacheco Pass and Gilroy Crossing shopping centers to drive sales figures beyond $1.3 billion in the next fiscal year.
