Everyone has a different plan to ‘save’ the city’s struggling
downtown
Morgan Hill – Local developer Gary Walton has a plan to save downtown. So does architect Leslie Miles. And business owner Brad Jones.
Everyone, it seems, has a plan to revitalize the city’s downtown. The city’s plan comes complete with guidelines for design, traffic, parking and the types of stores, restaurants and residential developments that will turn downtown Morgan Hill into the jewel of South County.
But the plan is three years old and downtown hasn’t cooperated. Shops and restaurants are closing, the area’s sales tax revenue is flat. By day, especially during the week, the streets are empty. At night, they’re dark and unwelcoming.
So there may be a multitude of plans to resuscitate for the city’s main corridor, but no one has hit on a solution. Now, as the city leaders contemplate yet another ballot measure to make it easier to develop downtown, they’re beginning to realize how difficult it will be and wonder when it will be time to stop tinkering and let downtown live or die on its own.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Councilman Larry Carr said. “We get conflicting messages from people all the time. That’s part of the frustration of going through this. Do we make drastic changes to the way we’ve been doing things or do we say we’ve made some changes and we should see how things shake out? That’s the central question and it’s a difficult question.”
Measure C, passed by voters in 2004, was supposed to provide the answer by encouraging developers to fill downtown with mixed-use projects of residential, retail and office space.
Those projects are coming – more than 400 residential units may be built downtown by 2010 – but the city’s growth control limits will make it hard if not impossible to for those developments to spur a downtown renaissance. And until Monterey Road is packed with new storefronts, downtown is not going to be a lively, vibrant place.
For the most part, council members say, they don’t believe downtown is in terrible shape. Everyone is hopeful that that the residential units scheduled to be built in the next five years will stimulate growth, and council members are wary of getting involved with individual businesses with what may be perceived as government subsidies.
The better role for government, they say, is to improve the area’s infrastructure with road improvements that improve traffic flow and make downtown more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly, and better lighting to improve the atmosphere. In the meantime, they will try to craft an overarching economic policy that will attract businesses and give them a chance to thrive in the open market.
“The most significant thing that needs to happen downtown is not housing, it’s not speed bumps, it’s not saving [individual businesses],” Councilman Greg Sellers said. “It’s new retail space, which we haven’t had in a generation. Until we get that, we’ll never get out of the downtown we have today.”
But no one has figured how to attract high-end specialty shops and other retail establishments to a downtown burdened with old buildings and empty lots, and city leaders are coming under increasing criticism for failing to invest in downtown.
“There needs to be a bigger commitment on the part of the city,” said Walton, chairman of the Morgan Hill Downtown Business Association. “I don’t think the downtown plan goes as far as it should. It’s not a specific plan. There’s not a clear vision or a strategy to implement that vision.”
Walton thinks the city is unfocused in its planning. The city is pushing a number of projects, including widening Depot Street and adding multi-use buildings on Third Street in an effort to tie development to a new county courthouse due to open at the corner of Butterfield Boulevard and Diana Avenue in August. Walton wants the downtown plan to start on Monterey Road.
“The A street for downtown is Monterey,” he said. “People don’t like to walk past blank spots and boarded-up storefronts. One of the priorities should be to work with those properties to bring back the fabric of downtown. You’ve got to work with the private sector and you’ve got to make the right things easy.”
Walton believes the city needs to redraw its zoning rules for downtown. So does Leslie Miles of Weston Miles Architects, whose Downtown Mall project required a generous interpretation of Measure C rules to pass muster (see related story). Miles also wants to the city to offer more financial incentives for downtown projects and create specific downtown development criteria.
“For really good, intense development to happen there needs to be an acknowledgment there are costs associated with building downtown,” Miles said. “Instead of being penalized, we should be encouraged.”
Brad Jones, who with his wife Cinda Meister, owns BookSmart and The Good Life Cafe, said that city policy actually obstructs beneficial downtown development.
“They don’t realize it, but they’re standing in the way,” Jones said. “The city needs to collectively agree that higher-density, mixed-use projects make sense and allow them to happen, not just pay lip service to it.”
Jones, who’s Thinker Toys store closed recently, wants the city to carve out exceptions from Measure C and allow more downtown development in the immediate future.
That question is likely to appear on November’s ballot, but just as city council members are told to develop downtown faster, some, including Walton, are saying that the city needs to stop tinkering and develop an entire new downtown plan.
“I’m open to anything, but we’re getting mixed messages,” Councilman Steve Tate said. “They say, build as much housing as possible, and now they say we’re going too fast. I want to do it the right way, but I’m not an expert on how this needs to be done. I’m a little confused and I would like to get a consistent message.”
