Gazing through the front window at BookSmart Kids – now an empty building lined with bare shelves, a freezer depleted of ice cream and miscellaneous clusters of inventory waiting to be picked up – Queen’s 1980 single “Another One Bites the Dust” comes to mind.
After a year-long run as a used book retailer called Garlic City Books, followed by a metamorphosis in mid-September when the venue was reinvented as a children’s book and gift store, owners Brad Jones and Cinda Meister pulled their tomes, toys and treats out of 7490 Monterey St. for good.
The store’s Dec. 11 closure marks downtown’s freshest casualty since Lizarran restaurateur Gary Walton – a developer who owns the neoclassical edifice that housed BookSmart Kids – announced last month that Lizarran (formerly Old City Hall) will shut it doors permanently on New Year’s Day. The landmark-turned-eatery opened that opened in November 2009 folded after two brisk years due to overheard expenses and a gloomy economic outlook.
“The whole time we were open, we never made a penny. We were in the red,” said Jones, who has owned and operated BookSmart in Morgan Hill with his wife, Meister, for 17 years. “When you have a toy and bookstore, and you’re going into the last weeks of the holidays and your sales go down, you know that people aren’t shopping downtown.”
The couple recently shifted their focus to San Jose, where their newest BookSmart branch inside Westfield Oakridge Mall opened in early November. The store was well received, Jones said, and is garnering repeat customers.
“The Morgan Hill store is doing better than the last couple of years,” added Brad Tuesday afternoon as he sat behind the Morgan Hill store counter and catered to a steady stream of Christmas shopping patrons. “It just didn’t translate to Gilroy.”
After closing Garlic City Books in late July, Jones and Meister reopened their Gilroy branch Sept. 16 with a new angle; honing in on a family-oriented market that already has a strong foothold downtown with businesses such as Mango Street Kids and Lana’s Dance Studio.
The store’s second chapter as BookSmart Kids came to an abrupt halt five months later – despite a KSPW advertising campaign; print notices published in a small South County entertainment guide; and getting plenty of publicity during the Dec. 2 downtown holiday parade.
When asked what type of improvements would give entrepreneurs a better shot at success, Jones identified two major variables: Parking issues, and Gilroy’s unsightly crop of unreinforced masonry buildings.
“The architecture is great, but there needs to be more things for people to do downtown, and that won’t happen unless those empty buildings get fixed so they can be leased and turned into something productive,” he said.
Adding to that is the constant shortage of parking spaces, which Jones said are eternally occupied by the 450 or so people who work downtown.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve come downtown and parked in one of the parking lots and not seen an empty parking place, and then I’ll go into my store and there’s not one person in there,” he said.
With the Gilroy Outlets and big box stores at Pacheco Pass ensnaring most of Gilroy’s consumers, Jones also surmised “it’s very hard to overcome the critical mass of shopping that’s been created in Gilroy.”
The solution?
Downtown needs to blossom into a different kind of area with its own allure, Jones said; an aesthetic niche where the draw is a combination of entertainment, specialty shops and locally owned restaurants.
Walton, additionally, believes a revitalization plan for the low-income neighborhoods surrounding Monterey Street would be ancillary to a downtown renaissance. Historic neighborhoods speckled with one-of-a-kind Victorian homes, Walton said, especially when they’re within walking distance of dining, retail and nightlife, are a highly desirable commodity to prospective renters and home buyers.
He underlined the tactic of gearing downtown’s offerings to what the community wants, because “you can’t try to create Los Gatos in downtown Gilroy,” said Walton. “It’s not gonna happen.”
This is something he hopes Gilroyan Melanie Corona, the city’s recently hired Downtown Business Association part-time coordinator, will address as the new liaison between downtown merchants, city officials, the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, the Gilroy Welcome Center and the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation. Walton also hopes Corona will work with the DBA in developing strategies to attract new tenants.
Like Jones, Walton pointed out fewer business means less foot traffic in a lackluster downtown – a place that should be the Garlic Capital’s social artery; rather than a ghost town lined with empty buildings.
Branching from this train of thought, Connie Rogers, president of the Gilroy Historical Society headquartered at the Gilroy Museum downtown, said it’s going to merit more than one or two new businesses to defibrillate downtown – and keep the pulse going.
“It’s going to take half a dozen new businesses that have something people will go down there for,” she mused. “I’m really sad BookSmart Kids pulled up stakes and left. But apparently not enough of us went there.”
As for what will become of the 1912 building standing vacant and in want of an occupant, that part is an open book; or, “the riddle wrapped in the conundrum,” as Walton put it.
Originally the First National Bank of Gilroy, 7490 Monterey St. has donned its fair share of hats in the course of 99 years, Rogers and Walton said. This includes a skateboard shop, a law office, photography studio, a fabric store, antique shop and appliance warehouse, to name a few
After pouring thousands of dollars into Garlic City Books and BookSmart Kids, Jones agreed giving up on Gilroy was a sad decision, “but in any case, you just have to move on.”
