Residents fond of Morgan Hill
’s downtown should take a quick look now because it won’t be the
same in a few months. Despite an on-going winterlike economy,
shoppers and diners will see a flurry of new and renewed
restaurants, an artist’s gallery/co-op plus some intriguing plans
still under wraps.
Residents fond of Morgan Hill’s downtown should take a quick look now because it won’t be the same in a few months. Despite an on-going winterlike economy, shoppers and diners will see a flurry of new and renewed restaurants, an artist’s gallery/co-op plus some intriguing plans still under wraps.
The Downtown Mall has been sold to Manou Mobedshahi, a native of Iran and a new Morgan Hill resident who says he is intent on improving his town. Mobedshahi is president of the Mobedshahi Hotel Group that came to Santa Clara Valley attention when the group bought the closed Sainte Claire Hotel in downtown San Jose in 1991 and turned it into the Hyatt Sainte Claire, refurbishing it into an updated hotel with a period feel.
The Group also owns, among its national holdings, the San Jose Airport Hyatt which gained the distinction back in 1997 of being the first hotel in the area to be wired for computer and Internet access in every room.
The Downtown Mall is an old building (it appears in pictures dated July 4, 1912) on the east side of Monterey Road from Continental Stitch at East First Street, south past Gallery Morgan Hill and The Music Tree. The mall does not include the Chamber of Commerce building, though the Chamber is connected with the mall by a covered sidewalk. Mobedshahi also bought the parking lot behind the mall, stretching from East First to East Second.
The mall also does not include the Granada Theater though Mobedshahi has taken a 30-year lease on the building, closed to movie-goers since October by its owners Ed and Irene Enderson. They had hoped to find a backer to refurbish the theater and bring it back to life.
Mobedshahi said recently that he did not yet know exactly what he will do with the building(s) and is open to suggestions from business owners and the public.
“I’ll be traveling around, looking for successful projects in other cities that might work for Morgan Hill,” Mobedshahi said during a recent encounter at downtown’s Thinker Toys.
Ideas currently batting around could keep one Granada movie screen showing carefully selected movies but turn the other side into a related retail and possibly a café – all designed to work together and enhance each other. But so far those are just ideas. Mobedshahi said he isn’t even sure whether he will renovate the mall building or replace it with something fresh, new and more efficient.
At a meeting of the Downtown Association on Jan. 20, the entrepreneur claimed that making money from the project was not his primary concern.
“I don’t want to lose money,” he said, “but I don’t need to make a lot either.”
THIS JUST IN
Other downtown news is equally intriguing. The old building next to Rosy’s at the Beach – it actually was the town’s first movie theater before the Granada was built in 1952 – has been purchased by developer Dave Scoffone. He plans to renovate the building and lease it to a restaurant group with plans for a sports bar called Sports Book – with a history of sports theme.
Sinaloa Mexican Café and Maurizio’s Italian Cuisine are about to reopen – they hope mid-month. Sinaloa has moved into Maurizio’s old quarters at 17535 Monterey.
Maurizio has moved across the street to 25 E. First St. and has remodeled an old building into what he calls “a trattoria-style restaurant.”
Another developer is in escrow with the old Gunter Brothers Feed Store, on Monterey Road but hasn’t yet announced plans.
BookSmart and Thinker Toy owners Brad Jones and Cinda Meister are about to open a shop with greeting cards, candies, gifts and bunches of flowers, next to the bookstore at 17415 Monterey Road at West Second Street. The shop will be called “Love Bug.”Artist Shelley Hanes is about to open the Morgan Hill Art Guild and Gallery in the little yellow house at 17265 Monterey Road, just south of Third Street. Visitors can watch a rotating collection of artists at work.
Karen Marks has sold Piccolo’s (Italian sandwiches, pasta and juices) on East Second Street to the Second Street Coffee Exchange’s Abid and Salma Shah.
Finally, Morgan Hill’s Sarah and Joe Simon have bought Quin’s restaurant at 17385 Monterey Road
Several of these projects will depend in part on some funding from the Redevelopment Agency’s “quick hitter” program, which will return to the City Council Feb. 18. The city has almost $3 million unallocated in RDA funds that the council/RDA has dedicated to helping business owners spruce up downtown.
