New Garlic Festival Association project on Lewis Street heads to
city council Feb. 27
A new four-story mixed-used building is working its way through
the planning process, and when completed will grace the northern
entrance into Gilroy’s downtown.
Planning commissioners last week voted unanimously to recommend
approval of the so-called Garlic Festival building at the corner of
Lewis and Monterey streets. The 20,000-square-foot structure will
house the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association on the ground floor,
along with various retailers.
New Garlic Festival Association project on Lewis Street heads to city council Feb. 27
A new four-story mixed-used building is working its way through the planning process, and when completed will grace the northern entrance into Gilroy’s downtown.
Planning commissioners last week voted unanimously to recommend approval of the so-called Garlic Festival building at the corner of Lewis and Monterey streets. The 20,000-square-foot structure will house the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association on the ground floor, along with various retailers.
The project comes in the midst of what some are calling the beginning of a downtown renaissance in Gilroy. South County Housing’s Cannery project will add just over 100 new residential units near the planned Garlic Festival office on Lewis Street. Downtown developer Gary Walton, who also served as the chairman of the Downtown Specific Plan Committee, is planning a mixed-use commercial-residential building at Fourth and Monterey streets tentatively called Fourth Street Commons.
All these new residents will benefit the downtown financially, socially and economically, Walton explained. According to research on downtown spending trends, each additional resident adds between $8,000 and $10,000 in annual revenue.
If, for example, 300 new residential units were added to downtown Gilroy, that would generate between $2.4 million and $3 million of additional annual revenue for the downtown businesses, Walton said.
Socially, when all the businesses in a downtown core shut down at night and employees go home, the area is ripe for criminal activity. But when there are, as Walton put it, “more eyes on the street” 24 hours a day, criminal activity diminishes.
And economically, the more diversity in retail, civic and office space a downtown has, the better able it is to withstand periodic economic downturns, Walton said.
The second floor of the Garlic Festival building will contain residential flats, while the top two floors will feature two-story townhouses. Twenty-seven parking spaces are planned in an underground garage.
Planning staff noted that the project will contain two offices – one permanent (Garlic Festival) and one temporary office for Tanglewood Construction (the co-developers and builders). Within the downtown core, ground level businesses must be retail shops, but the planning commission waived the restriction, as the Garlic Festival office will have a retail component.
It’s conceivable that Tanglewood’s temporary office would never be occupied by the builder, as the office is described as “transitional” and would be vacated as soon as a retail user is found
“It would be in my best interest to find the retail tenant prior to doing my tenant improvements,” wrote Randy Moen, president of the Gilroy-based construction company, in a Jan. 20 letter to the city Planning Department. “This would mean I would never move into the space.”
Still, the Planning Commission put a three-year limit on the time Tanglewood could occupy space in the building.
Of key focus for downtown planners is to emphasize the connection between the Garlic Festival building and the “Garlic Capital of the World.”
“Early in the specific plan process the design consultant remarked that although the world knows Gilroy for the Garlic Festival, there is no ‘garlic’ downtown to remind visitors at other times of the year of Gilroy’s unique attraction,” wrote staff planner Gregg Polubinsky in his project report to commissioners. “The consultant stressed that downtown Gilroy must build on the garlic theme. The relocation of the Festival office and store would be one such step.”
The festival office will occupy roughly 4,000 square feet of the bottom floor, while the remaining 8,440 square feet will be “high-profile” retail space, Polubinsky wrote. Jeff Martin, who represented the Festival Association before the planning commission last week, said one possible use would be a garlic-themed restaurant.
Moen, the Tanglewood president, said that the space might not be attractive for a retailer until the Cannery project comes on line, which is estimated to be between three and five years.
“Clearly, a successful retail user would desire the nearby population to support themselves,” Moen wrote.
The project is scheduled to go before the Gilroy City Council on Feb. 27.
