From the Visitor’s Bureau to the City Council, business owners
to economic officials, they’re all working together to bring a new
energy to downtown, and after three years of tangible results, they
say this is just the beginning.
Gilroy – From the Visitor’s Bureau to the City Council, business owners to economic officials, they’re all working together to bring a new energy to downtown, and after three years of tangible results, they say this is just the beginning.
Most of the recent buzz has come from the Downtown Business Association, a nonprofit body of business-savvy folks formed in the 1980s that has taken flight this year by organizing movie nights, antique festivals, a car show, the upcoming wine and art festival, and, of course, the increasingly popular Fifth Street Live concert series.
“The thing that’s making 99 percent of the difference downtown is the business association and all the events bringing residents downtown and bringing awareness that, yes, there is a downtown,” said Steve Gearing, a director on the business association board and the owner of Happy Dog Pizza on Fifth Street, right where the music plays Friday nights.
An extension of the concert debuts Saturday in the form of Rock ‘n’ Ribs: an elaborate cook-off with professional judges, cash prizes, wine and beer, music and, of course, locals. Ashford said he anticipates a large crowd. The concerts have drawn around 350 people in recent weeks.
“It’s so great to see neighbors meeting neighbors, people hanging out drinking wine. We’re only in the very infancy of getting this thing going,” Gearing said. “There are nights I hear people say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know we had a shoe place down here,’ or, ‘I didn’t know this was there.’ There are cool businesses downtown, and we need these events there until we have some real momentum going.”
As the president of Gilroy’s nonprofit Economic Development Corporation, Larry Cope is largely in charge of this momentum, as evidenced by the 25 active projects currently winding their way through city paperwork and construction headaches. A quaint candle shop and costume store have opened since he came in two years ago. A cafe’s on the way, along with an indoor soccer arena, grill and vegetarian restaurant.
“We’re out there actively recruiting, calling on everything from mom and pop stores to regional and national chains,” said Cope, who has spent more than two years implementing the city’s Downtown Specific Plan and luring businesses to the area by waiving development “impact” fees. The plan is for these new businesses to draw cosmopolitan residents who shop and dine, eventually generating compensatory sales taxes.
Many of the slated businesses include residential space on their second and third floors for this very reason. They are banking on the influx of tenants into an area that’s never really seen crowds of window-browsers and coffee-sippers who walk, instead of drive, to their balconied condos. $300,000 to $550,000 condos, versus $700,000 houses, will draw shop-happy singles and retired folks, Cope said.
All of this development’s sustainability depends on the market and City Council limits on the number of housing units allowed downtown, Cope said. Until he reaches that ceiling, though, Cope will continue attending business association meetings each month and coordinating with the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitor’s Bureau.
Jane Howard used to be in the business association, but now she works for the Visitor’s Bureau at the “entryway of downtown” on Monterey Street between Second and Third streets.
“When you walk down the street and see what’s getting torn down and what’s going up, it’s really remarkable,” Howard said, adding that she encourages visitors and locals alike to begin their days downtown. The “close working relationship” among her bureau and the various development bodies, she said, has guaranteed downtown a “new look with an old feel.”
Steve Ashford is a local builder who also directs the business association, and along with Dave Peoples, owner of the Nimble Thimble on Sixth Street, he has spearheaded the new-look-old-feel effort by creating events with old-fashion camaraderie.
“People get dinner at the bowling alley and then by 7, the music starts,” Ashford said in reference to Fifth Street Live. “It ends at nine, but families are still sitting out there, drinking wine, eating pizza. Sue’s coffee shop is staying open later. The nightlife is what the city is pushing to happen there, and it’s not, so that’s what we’re trying to show people.”
The weekly concert series has proven so popular, Ashford said, that bands from all around are asking if they can play at the four remaining shows.
“We got bands stepping up and saying, ‘Look at us next year,’ ” Ashford said. “We still got a lot of tricks up our sleeve.”
Rock ‘n’ Ribs is one such trick. “Maybe a drive-in movie night next year,” Ashford teased.
“The point is, we’re bringing people downtown who live here who don’t realize there is a downtown,” Ashford said. “Our main goal is to deal with local people and get the families to come down.”
