Owners of the Morgan Hill Plaza Shopping Center, located at
Monterey Road and W. Dunne Ave., are not looking to sell and are
not eager for redevelopment of the center, according to a report
prepared by the Conley Consulting Group, based in Oakland.
Owners of the Morgan Hill Plaza Shopping Center, located at Monterey Road and W. Dunne Ave., are not looking to sell and are not eager for redevelopment of the center, according to a report prepared by the Conley Consulting Group, based in Oakland.
And the city doesn’t have any money for such uses in its RDA accounts.
“We don’t have a spare $11 million lying around,” said Councilman Greg Sellers, referring to the estimated cost of between $7 million to $11 million for the city to acquire the property for redevelopment.
Other cost estimates in the report included $1.5 million to $3.5 million to reconfigure the existing center and $500,000 to $1.5 million to give the center a facelift.
“I don’t see any way to refer this to the EDC (Economic Development committee) or a new committee and come up with a way to address it,” said Councilman Steve Tate.
Councilwoman Hedy Chang also commented on the cost of the redevelopment.
“Unless you put a lot of big money into it, I don’t see many changes happening,” she said Thursday. “Typically, the anchor tenant drives the center. As to reconfiguring the center, it depends on the purpose. What do you mean by redevelopment, and how much of an eyesore do you really think it is? If we wanted to do a whole concept of something brand new, I see two things: one it has to generate a whole lot more sales tax revenue than it does now, and two, it should benefit all the citizens of the community.”
Another difficulty, according to Conley, is that most of the property owners are absentee landlords and are not eager to sell.
“You would have to consider eminent domain,” she said. “You would have to consider if (eminent domain) is worth it for that site.”
Eminent domain could only be invoked by the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) if an amendment to the RDA plan was approved by voters, according to City Attorney Helene Leichter.
The report was presented to the City Council during Wednesday’s meeting.
Reacting to a downturn in the center’s appearance and the probable pull-out of the Albertson’s grocery store from the center, combined with the fact that the center is located across from the new community center and at the south entrance to an increasingly vibrant downtown and the clamor of residents seeking better shopping, the city hired the Conley Group to study what could be done.
Four scenarios were considered in the report, including redeveloping the site for private uses, redeveloping for public use, reconfiguring the existing retail center and giving the center a facelift.
The council unanimously approved a motion to consider the report further in a future workshop.
Acquiring the property would allow the city to raze the center completely and start from scratch, according to Denise Conley and Linda Braz, who presented the report, or to reconfigure it.
One of the options in reconfiguring it would be to develop a “market hall” in the vacated Charter School of Morgan Hill space. The school relocated to the empty Encinal school campus this summer.
A market hall concept, Conley explained, is a “European shopping concept, a multi-vendor concept” where several small vendors such as a bakery, a produce vendor, a cheese vendor, a wine vendor, a butcher, a florist, set up together in a large “hall.” The emphasis is on gourmet or quality products, not shopping for large quantities.
Conley said the likelihood of a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods store coming to Morgan Hill, which is something many residents have voiced a request for, was small because the size of the city is “not in their business plan.”
Wild Oats, a San Diego-based natural and organic grocery with no location north of Los Angeles, is reportedly looking for a strip-mall location, with fewer restrictions.
Councilman Larry Carr admitted the financial constraints of the Conley Consulting plan, but said he was not willing to give up on the idea of improving the property.
“I think there are probably some things we can do,” he said. “How can we leave such an important intersection out of what we are doing for the downtown? This is the definition of redevelopment to me.”
