The Hollister Redevelopment Agency may look into spending $2
million to buy and develop the site of the former Lindeman Chrysler
dealership on San Benito Street in an effort to clean up the
”
gateways
”
to the city and make the downtown more attractive to national
retailers.
Hollister – The Hollister Redevelopment Agency may look into spending $2 million to buy and develop the site of the former Lindeman Chrysler dealership on San Benito Street in an effort to clean up the “gateways” to the city and make the downtown more attractive to national retailers.
The property includes the old Lindeman storefront at 201 San Benito Street and the empty car lot across the street, according to the RDA’s Bryan Briggs, who is putting together a report he’ll present to the Hollister City Council next month on the benefits and “opportunity costs” of purchasing the property. Basically, he said, this means he’ll tell them his ideas for developing the property and then tell them what it could mean in terms of bringing those ideas to fruition if the city doesn’t purchase the property sooner rather than later.
Briggs made a brief presentation of his proposal to purchase the Lindeman building at Monday night’s RDA meeting, and said he got mixed reactions from the council members. While Councilman Robert Scattini said he didn’t like the idea of using RDA funds in that particular area and Mayor Pauline Valdivia did not take a stance one way or the other, council members Brad Pike, Doug Emerson and Monica Johnson told Briggs they were all for the idea.
“I definitely want it. I want it big-time,” Pike said of the purchase and redevelopment of the Lindeman building. “I want people in Hollister to be proud of their community when they drive into it, and that’s the main corridor people drive into. First impressions, when people drive in and see dilapidated businesses with nothing in them, they think ‘What’s going on in Hollister?'”
Benefits of developing the property would include the ability to put in mixed-use buildings with office space on the bottom floor and residential housing on the top, according to Briggs. In addition, he said, he’s hoping to designate some of the housing units for affordable housing. And the lot at the corner of San Benito and Second streets could be transformed into a city parking lot, Briggs said.
The Lindeman Dodge Chrysler Jeep dealership closed shortly before Christmas in 2004 after Chrysler hauled away all its vehicles due to low sales. Lindeman bought the property from Glen Hartzheim Sr. in 2003, and before Hartzheim bought the business in 1995 it had been owned by the Bishop family for almost 50 years. Once full of new and used vehicles, the Lindeman lots have now been barren for months.
“The new general plan calls for mixed-use there and we would love to have it there,” Briggs said. “We’d really like to clean up the gateways and we can do that if we develop the right projects on the right sites.”
The old Lindeman property sits on either side of the city’s north gateway, surrounding tourists and residents alike as they drive into town from Gilroy or San Jose. But as two vacant lots, the property is not as welcoming as it could be to shoppers or national retailers, Briggs said.
“When you’re trying to attract a national retailer, they want to make sure that there’s adequate resources nearby, like hotels and parking. And we’d like to increase some retailers that would encourage people to shop downtown,” he said.
Rick Maddux, owner of Maddux Jewelry downtown on San Benito Street, said he’d love to see something done to the downtown to make it more appealing to shoppers.
“We could always use that,” he said. “Anything that can be done to make that town more attractive would be nice. Everything that you do matters as far as that goes. It’s just time that we look like a bigger city.”
But there would also be some drawbacks to developing the Lindeman lots. When asked by Scattini at Monday night’s RDA meeting, Briggs told the council the property would cost around $2.2 million to buy from its current owner, Dave Buich. On Wednesday, Briggs said because the city has not entered into a contract with Buich, he wasn’t sure what the selling price would actually be.
“We have talked some numbers, but I guarantee those are going to change,” Briggs said.
Money would not be a huge issue though if the council does decide to move forward with negotiations to buy the property, he added, as the RDA has $14 million in funds not already earmarked for specific projects.
But Scattini, who along with former City Manager Dale Shaddox had originally asked the RDA to look into cleaning up the town’s gateways, said Wednesday the money could be used for other projects that would benefit the city’s gateways even more.
“That (the Buich property) isn’t really the blight area. The blight area is to the east and west,” Scattini said. “Yes it is part of the gateway, but it’s not in a situation where it’s really that bad. You just slap some paint on the sides of the (Lindeman building’s) metal garage and it would be fine.”
Scattini said when he came to the RDA with the idea of improving the city’s gateways, he had had projects like the erection of a “Welcome to Hollister” sign and the beautification of Highway 156 coming into town from San Juan Bautista and Highway 25 coming in from Gilroy.
“Maybe put in some shrubbery or whatever it takes. At least have a sign that welcomes people coming into town,” Scattini said.
Briggs will be presenting a report on the Lindeman building project to the council at a meeting in early- to mid-May.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
