Most people agree that a theater’s the thing to make for a
bustling downtown but disagree on how that goal should be
reached.
MORGAN HILL
Most people agree that a theater’s the thing to make for a bustling downtown but disagree on how that goal should be reached.
On Wednesday night, the council approved moving forward with a mixed-use project located on the southeast corner of Monterey Road and Second Street – tentatively a two-story office and retail complex with a three-screen, 600-seat theater on the second floor.
The council agreed that the downtown needs a theater. The Granada – which still stands on Monterey Road next to the Downtown Mall – closed in 2003 and was purchased by the city in December 2007. Last year, the city passed on making the Granada a historical site, but gave such status to the theater’s marquee and facade, which will be relocated to the new downtown theater.
To longtime residents like Sally Casas, who frequented the duplex theater in its glory days, the Granada is Morgan Hill. Demolishing it in favor of a larger, mixed-use project, as is the city’s plan for the block, is unacceptable. She requested that the city consider keeping the Granada in its original space.
“I believe the historical characteristics of Morgan Hill will not survive” without the Granada, she said.
And although prominent members of the downtown business community said they’d like to see an interim use of the existing Granada, the council had its reservations that the old theater was useful either in the short or the long term.
“I’m very skeptical,” Mayor Steve Tate said. However, he said staff will look at other possibly “feasible” plans for the Granada, which include the so-called Sobrato plan. In this interim plan, presented in August by the nonprofit Sobrato Arts – which is run by Sobrato High School teachers Gary Harmon, Erik Kalish and Mark Masoni – the theater would possibly be used for live performances and movie screenings. The city initially denied the proposal since officials are skeptical about how renovating the theater would be paid for and how shuttering it once the new theater opens would play out.
Councilman Larry Carr said he’d like to offer an interim theater to an actual theater operator.
“That was my initial thought of why we would do that, to incentivize with a theater operator,” Carr said. “Then we could work with them to tie them in with a long-term lease with the new theater.”
But, Tate and other councilmembers held little hope that the Granada would ever reopen on a permanent basis.
“In Santa Cruz, they put a lot of money into Del Mar (Theater) and renovated it into a gorgeous theater palace,” Tate said. “The Granada is not a gorgeous theater palace and it can’t be restored to that kind of thing.”
Councilman Greg Sellers pointed out that, as sentimental a figure as the Granada is for Morgan Hill residents, it was not the city’s first theater. The first theater was located at 17330 Monterey Road – where sports bar Legends Bar & Grill now sits – and was “relatively unused for several decades,” Sellers said.
Former mayor Dennis Kennedy, who is a member of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association’s board of directors, called upgrading the Granada for temporary use “a downtown economic stimulus package.”
Kennedy said minor repairs and cleaning should only cost about $150,000.
“That would be a very appropriate use of (redevelopment agency) funds. One of their uses is economic benefits,” he said. “The theater will help bring people into the downtown. That will help keep (merchants) going in this interim time.”
Kennedy’s view seemed to reflect the rest of the attending stakeholders’, from Chamber of Commerce President Chris Giusiana to that of the Sobrato Arts trio. Having a nonprofit operator like Sobrato Arts sounded good to Councilwoman Marilyn Librers.
“I would love to get some community buy-in,” she said of Kalish’s suggestion that the community could help refurbish the Granada. “I’m in complete support of that.”
City staff will update the council on their progress finding an interested developer and operator for both the interim use of the Granada and the mixed-use project at Monterey and Second.
