It may be April of next year before the City Council can approve
or disapprove of the proposed Downtown Plan, but we like the fact
that they cared enough to make it happen in the first place.
It may be April of next year before the City Council can approve or disapprove of the proposed Downtown Plan, but we like the fact that they cared enough to make it happen in the first place.
This May the council took a look at the plan that would encourage a modern mix of retail, dining, entertainment, commercial and housing, all connected to the developing transportation hub, and pronounced it good.
They did hold up things by asking that a study of traffic patterns be done after Hwy 101 was widened and Butterfield Boulevard was extended through to Tennant Avenue – in early 2004. Once the study is complete, council will take another look at the future of “Old Town” Morgan Hill, probably in April 2004.
In the meantime, residents can explore the old part of town, see what’s there and enjoy dinner, buy a toy, a skateboard, antiques or art or see a movie. Come down and check it out. If you don’t spend much time downtown you may be surprised. You might even drive down the side streets and see how many houses are still standing since the town’s early days in 1906.
In the next decade or so the Monterey Road part of town won’t have changed too terribly much – except to get more quaint and friendly – but East Third and Depot streets will. Rocke Garcia plans a huge mixed-use development on property owned by his Glenrock Group between Third and Fourth streets and even the 1906 Morgan Hill Times building may get a facelift.
Other developers have plans for Depot including turning the derelict, abandoned Isaacson Feed Co. into The Granary, an architecturally designed office complex with space for retail or restaurants. Work on The Granary began this week.
Adding spice to the mix is the new county courthouse, about to materialize on the other side of the railroad tracks and packed with potential customers. The downtown business community is relying on them to make their way from the courthouse, across the new at-grade crossing, down Third Street to Monterey Road.
Ten years is a long time. Change is always slow in coming but, as we have seen with other civic buildings, if people want it to happen, it will. We hope the new library is in the same boat, but that’s for another day.
The neat thing about the mixed-use idea is that this is the way cities and towns were built before the age of the automobile that caused that old devil, suburbia. Old Town Morgan Hill – our present day downtown – started out as mixed use. It’s nice to see that a good idea has returned.
Hot Downtown Tips: Farmers Market at the train station every Saturday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and the free Friday Night Music Series, West Second Street at Monterey Road, 7-9 p.m., Fridays through September.
