Standing atop the rubble that was the old South Valley Bikes building April 20, city officials and business leaders shared memories of the site’s storied past and reflected on the future of downtown Morgan Hill.
“Up and down the Peninsula, Morgan Hill is the city that people are talking about” when it comes to downtown development, said Dan McCranie, owner of the former South Valley Bikes site on the corner of Second Street and Monterey Road. “Very few downtowns are able to do this,” he added, referring to the multitude of city and private projects in progress and recently completed to spruce up the neighborhood.
McCranie addressed the crowd of elected and paid City Hall officials and fellow businesspeople while standing atop a wooden plank sign—likely from around 1910—that advertised Edes Brothers hardware and grocery store, the first business that ever occupied the site. The crowd was also surrounded by the piled and scattered remains of the South Valley Bikes building, the demolition of which was freshly completed the morning of April 20.
The building, which has remained vacant the last few years, has a rich history that holds fond memories for many longtime Morgan Hill residents.
“Several prominent businesses were here for a long time,” said Morgan Hill Building Inspector Ken Deluna. His uncle, Al Statti, ran Corner Drug Store on the site from the 1960s until he retired in the 1980s. The store had a soda fountain and was a “typical small town” drug store, Deluna said.
“As a young kid I used to come in on the weekends and sweep the floors and change the lights,” Deluna said.
McCranie plans to build a multi-story retail, dining and entertainment development on the site. But before that, he will work with City Hall to temporarily relocate its “pop-up park” to the property once it’s cleaned up. The pop-up park is now at the corner of Monterey Road and Third Street, but the new owner of that site plans to start construction on a four-restaurant, two-building complex later this year.
As for the long-term future plans for a permanent development on the site, McCranie isn’t offering a lot of details yet but said “classic retail” will be featured on the ground floor, with “dining, lounge and entertainment” uses on the upper floors.
“Obviously, the last five years have shown extraordinary growth in downtown Morgan Hill,” McCranie said. “The one thing that’s not yet showing great growth is classic retail.”
The Edes family was on the property first, running their hardware store for a couple decades starting around 1910, Deluna explained.
Susan Edes, wife of Morgan Hill resident Tim Edes, showed up at the April 20 ceremony to accept the store’s sign that has remained inside the building for more than 100 years. McCranie offered the sign to the Edes’ descendants.
After the Edes moved out, Telfer Grocery Store, owned and operated by John Telfer, moved in. Telfer’s grandson is current Morgan Hill resident and real estate broker John Telfer. He has no recollection of the store as it was there before he was born. His grandfather was a blacksmith, with a shop north of the South Valley Bikes site in downtown, before he opened the grocery store. He moved to Morgan Hill about 1906.
“He decided blacksmithing didn’t have much future to it, and that’s when they went into the grocery business,” Telfer said. Telfer’s father Ernest and uncle Alec were part of the family business, and ran the store after it moved north, about where the Goodwill store is now on Monterey Road.
His grandfather died in 1948 after he was struck by a vehicle while walking across Monterey Road, Telfer said.
He added it “would be kind of cool” if McCranie could hang some historical photographs of the different businesses from that site on the walls of the new establishment he plans to build on the corner.
After Telfer moved out, Squeri Brothers Hardware moved to the property on the corner of Second Street and Monterey Road, Deluna added. That store occupied the site through the 1950s. Then Statti’s Corner Drug Store moved in, and then South Valley Bikes in the 1980s.
McCranie—who is also the owner of Ladera Grill restaurant down the street—purchased the property in 2012, with his son, for about $700,000.
McCranie credited the city’s staff and elected officials, as well as nonprofit and business organizations for facilitating recent downtown improvements and future development of sites like the Granada Theater, Downtown Mall, BookSmart shopping center and the former liquor store at Third and Monterey.
“I hope we’ll have a lot more memories in the new facility,” McCranie added.
