The City of Morgan Hill is set on selling an option they own, “Depot Center/BookSmart,” to City Ventures, a developer from Southern California. The company has developed many great projects but this one will not be good for Morgan Hill. This project will be a net loss for the community. A small group has offered to match the offer from City Ventures for the option and keep Depot Center as it is. If this happens the owners of Depot Center have agreed to do major repairs to the property and do everything they can to keep the present tenants intact.
Several years ago the city bought this option for about $1.7 million. Today they are offering that same option to a developer for $100,000 dollars. So the price is set at $100,000. What will the community get for $100,000? You will get some townhomes and a small amount of retail space.
Here is how I see it:
Morgan Hill will only get 8 to 10 percent more property tax from the new project than they are receiving now on the property.
Sales tax will be far less than what the city is getting now because they are only building 3,000 square feet of retail space. The property currently holds about 25,000 square feet of retail space.
Existing tenants draw many more people downtown than the proposed project.
Occupants of the residential component of the project will be gone all day at work, so that is a loss to downtown.
Very few retail businesses will be able to afford the rents that need to be charged for new construction.
There are more employees working at the current site than what is being proposed.
Seven or 8 long-time businesses, which have supported the downtown for more than 100 years collectively, will be displaced.
The City of Morgan Hill will spend up to $1 million in relocation funds (already earmarked by the city council).
The city has developed a relocation plan that may help some of the tenants but will be onerous for others.
They have no plan to keep these businesses downtown during redevelopment or to bring them back after. The downtown needs businesses just as much as it needs housing (maybe more!).
The City Ventures plan for the Depot Center property is very nearly the same type of project (townhouses and a little retail) that was denied last year for the property adjacent to Depot Center and the new parking garage. If this type of development is not right for one, why is it OK for the other?
I appreciate that the city has a lot to do and in a short matter of time but they shouldn’t cave in and put a bad plan into action just because time is short.
Contact your elected officials directly, not through social media. Directly speaking them to them pulls more weight than sniping on Facebook.
Cities need to keep older buildings for the reason Jane Jacobs said in her book, “The Life and Death of Great American Cities.”
The following is an excerpt from Jane Jacobs on old cities:
“If a city area has only new buildings, the enterprises that can exist there are automatically limited to those that can support the high costs of new construction…Enterprises that support the cost of new construction must be capable of paying a relatively high overhead—high in comparison to that necessarily required by old buildings.”
Brad Jones is co-owner of BookSmart, 80 East Second Street in downtown Morgan Hill.
