Everyone is invited to the grand opening celebration of the
city’s $3.8-million Third Street Promenade.
Everyone is invited to the grand opening celebration of the city’s $3.8-million Third Street Promenade. A full day of activities is scheduled for the Saturday, April 17 festival, starting with the season’s first Farmers Market and continuing with a full lineup of live music performances.
“We’re just celebrating another step in downtown revitalization,” Mayor Steve Tate said. “In Morgan Hill, everybody loves a party, so let’s all celebrate.”
Downtown restaurants and shops will sell food and merchandise all day, with a beer and wine booth opening in the late afternoon. Also on display throughout the day will be a classic car show.
Children’s and family-oriented events will also be offered, and live bands will start performing in the morning and continue until 10 p.m.
Headlining the entertainment schedule will be local band fourwayfree and Evolution, a Journey tribute band.
Event organizers say a key purpose of the festival, besides having fun, is to show the community all the different kinds of events that can take place on the newly constructed Third Street Promenade.
The project was designed to accommodate a variety of celebrations, encourage pedestrian traffic, and serve as a linchpin to downtown to draw residents and visitors to the area.
Starting in June, the Morgan Hill Downtown Association’s Thursday Street Dance, a series of live entertainment performances, will take place on Third Street and continue throughout the summer.
Visitors to the April 17 celebration will also get a chance to meet artist Morgan Bricca, who painted a mural depicting the history and the future of Morgan Hill on Third Street. The temporary mural was commissioned by the city’s Redevelopment Agency, which funded the Third Street project, to hide the undeveloped lot at the corner of Third and Depot streets. The individual panels on the half-block mural can be removed and displayed in other parts of town at a future date.
“The idea was to create a place where people want to be, and that’s why making this downtown scene was so important,” Bricca said recently while painting on Third Street.
The April 17 celebration will also be held in conjunction with the Morgan Hill Buddhist Community Center’s annual Japanese Taiko drum demonstration. The drummers will spend part of their all-day performance at the Third Street event.
City workers and contractors have added piecemeal construction details to Third Street since major construction was completed in January.
The last of those remaining details, the installation of two 20-foot, 15-year-old palm trees, was completed Thursday, according to deputy public works Director Karl Bjarke.
For celebrations such as next Saturday’s grand opening, the city will install removable bollards down the middle of the street, for decorative purposes and to deter vehicle traffic when the road is open only to pedestrians, Bjarke said.
