City, Santa Clara County
© McCormack's Guides
Zip Codes: 95020, 95021
The
Southern-most town in Santa Clara
County, Gilroy, population 52,027, is
a bedroom community with many stores and farming on the outskirts. www.mccormacks.com
In the
last decade, town increased its population by about 30 percent and between 2000
and 2006 added 7,000 residents, which by modern standards in Santa Clara County
is a fair amount.
More
families, more kids. In 2009, The Gilroy Unified School District plans opened another high school, Christopher, built in a modern circular design.
Click for regional or detailed map
Old town
Gilroy, situated west of Highway 101, has been spruced up with brick sidewalks
and trees. The train station and the city hall have been restored and the
latter pressed into service for classrooms for college courses. Monterey
Street, the main boulevard, is lined with restaurants, antique shops and a variety
of small stores. To bring more life to the area, the city is replacing closed
food plants with housing. Live music weekends.
Gilroy has two of the most successful
outlet malls in the state, one an outlet mall, the second a regular mall called
Gilroy Crossing. In or near these malls are a Home Depot, a Costco, a Target, a
Barnes and Noble bookstore, a Kohl's department store and a giant Wal-Mart.
All raise
revenue for the city and fund city programs and this translates into more money
for sports, activities and other amenities. Several car dealerships sweeten the
tax pot. www.mccormacks.com
Gilroy is
famous for its Garlic Festival. But over the last decade, it has become even
more famous for its shopping. Millions visit the stores every years, some
arriving on tour buses.
Despite
the suburban boom, miles of open space around the town give Gilroy a feeling of
country. Although old by California standards incorporated in 1870
Gilroy will strike many as modern.
Removed from
Silicon Valley, Gilroy was ignored in the first waves of suburbia that swept
over Santa Clara County between 1940 and 1970. It lacked an infrastructure
notably sewage treatment to support rapid growth and Highway 101 in the
south county was no more than a two-lane country road that frequently jammed.
Gradually
Highway 101 was improved and in the 1970s Gilroy came into play as a suburban
address. By this time, urban planners had learned a lot about what worked and
what didn't in suburbia and Gilroy probably benefited from this knowledge. Also
the flawed infrastructure new sewage plant opened in 1994 and
town sentiment forced the town's leaders to proceed slowly.
The
result: a community that's intelligently planned. The major stores and malls
and St. Louise Regional Hospital were placed east of the freeway, the housing
west of the freeway. www.mccormacks.com
The oldest
housing, cottages and bungalows, borders the downtown businesses and as you
move west and south, the housing gets newer and often bigger. Gilroy built
initially for the middle class and in recent years moved a little up the scale;
it has some variety. As the newcomers settled in, shops, supermarkets and
stores were opened to meet their needs.
The old
town gives Gilroy some historical and emotional continuity; this is not just a
bunch of tracts plunked down in the middle of nowhere. Gilroy has a memory and
a sense of coherence.
Neat
streets, many tree-lined. Attractive suburban, three- and four-bedroom homes,
lawns mowed, shrubs trimmed.
In the 1990s, Gilroy began work on a large gated development (Eagle Ridge) located on it west side, in gentle hills overlooking the rest of the town. This development moved Gilroy into an unscale market and changed the town's demographics. Instead of just low and middle income, Gilroy nows offers fairly high income, single homes starting about $800,000. Eagle Ridge has its own golf course, several parks, tennis and sports courts and a neighborhood pool.
In 2010,
Gilroy tallied 14,891 residential units 10,018 single homes, 927 single
attached, 3,515 multiples, 431 mobiles.
The west
side also has a community college, Gavilan, that's been there for decades and
in many ways nurtures academics and job training. www.mccormacks.com
Educationally,
Gilroy straddles two demographic groups: low-income farm (the region) and
middle-class white collar and professional. In recent years, the Gilroy
district has been revamping its programs to meet the needs of both, and not
surprisingly, getting into the arguments.
Until
2002, the school district employed magnet schools to blend kids. Magnet schools use
enriched programs to draw students away from their neighborhoods, thereby
breaking down segregation based on housing patterns.
But the
program required the busing of kids out of their neighborhood schools, which
some parents didn't like.
In 2002,
the district abandoned the magnet approach and assigned students to
neighborhood schools. The district also gave up year-round schools; all schools
now run the traditional September to June. Finally, separate classes for
advanced students, in place at the elementary and middle schools, were
introduced into the high school.
This
prompted the resignation of the principal and two assistant principals. They
said they were worried that the honors program would segregate students by
their ethnicity. In 2003, the honors program was revamped to admit more
students. www.mccormacks.com
Since
then, the district has drawn up an ambitious plan to improve learning across
the board.
In the 1990s, the school district spent
$4 million to renovate elementary schools and junior highs, the money coming from
a bond passed in 1993. Several schools have been built in recent years.
In 2002,
after failing once, the district passed a $69 million bond to build and
renovate facilities.
Schools
score low to middling, a few high, a reflection of the town's demographics. Voters in
2004 renewed a tax to support libraries. See Schools.
Gilroy is
a good town for playmates. In the 2000 census, 33 percent of the residents came
in under age 18, unusually high. www.mccormacks.com
Bookstores,
historical museum, two golf courses, kid sports, youth center, seniors center,
community center, swimming, softball, bingo, dancing, roller-skating, athletic
clubs, bowling, about 20 parks, including a sports park that opened in 2006, regional parks nearby, creek trails, ice
cream and yogurt parlors, poker parlor, movies, community theater, delis,
restaurants for a small town, Gilroy does all right in amusements.
County park, four miles west of town, honors and calls attention to culture of
Ohlone Indians.
Gilroy is trying to tap the tourist
trade. Wineries and redwoods a short distance off. Hilton Hotel, 140 rooms, on
the south side, near Highway 101.
Opened in
2001, Bonfante Gardens, a horticultural theme park, 167 acres off Highway 152,
on the southwest side of town. When it ran into money difficulties, the town took it over. Renamed it Gilroy Gardens.
The county
and conservationists have purchased for open space about 16,000 acres in the
hills. Many hiking trails.
For
information about activities, call the visitors bureau at (408) 842-6436. www.mccormacks.com
Garlic Festival (last full weekend in
July) draws about 120,000 who devour about 5,000 pounds of garlic. Gilroy also
throws a Hispanic Cultural Festival, dancing, singing, cultural events, eating
(food booths). Mexican Independence Day in September. Antique and Micro-Breweries
Fest. Farmers market, called El Mercado, good for fresh vegetables. In the
spring, flowers, grown commercially, brighten up the countryside.
Commute is
better than it has been in years but still pretty bad. It's a long haul to
Silicon Valley and this is the main drawback to Gilroy. Highway 101 has been
and is being improved and widened but it often gets overwhelmed by traffic.
Even on Saturdays and Sundays, Highway 101 clogs at points but the main bottleneck,
between Morgan Hill and San Jose, has been widened.
Caltrain
runs commuter trains from Gilroy to San Jose to San Francisco with stops at
Silicon Valley cities. Another alternative: buses and carpooling.
Highway
152 also runs through Gilroy. This road leads to Watsonville, near the Pacific,
and Los Banos and Interstate 5. Many who work in Silicon Valley commute to
Watsonville and the I-5 towns and bring extra traffic and congestion to Gilroy.
Improvements are being made to Highway 152 but it will remain a problem.
Three homicides in 2008, one each each in 2007 and 2006, zero homicides in 2005 and 2004, one in 2003, zero in 2002, three in 2001. Six in
2000, zero in 1999, three in 1998 and 1997, one in 1996, two in 1995, zero in
1994, two in 1993, one each in 1992, 1991 and 1990, two in 1989, two in 1988,
and none the three preceding years, reports FBI. See Crime.www.mccormacks.com
Chamber of
commerce (408) 842-6437.
Kaiser
has clinic-offices in town.
In 2004,
bond was passed to renovate Gavilan College and upgrade its tech facilities.
Before
garlic, Gilroy was famous for growing tobacco and manufacturing cigars and
later for its prunes, cherries and peaches, and milk and cheese. These days,
less garlic, more flowers and seeds and wine grapes.
In 2006,
small plane crashed in Gilroy, killing three on board. Plane was from Reid-Hillview
Airport in San Jose. www.mccormacks.com
City
requires developers to donate land for parks, which the city maintains. Many of
the parks are located next to schools.
Gilroy would like to speed up the overhaul of the downtown and convert the old farming warehouses into something modern. Two problems: market soft for commercial and apartments, many of the buildings need to be retrofitted for earthquake safety.
The town
was named after John Cameron Gilroy, a Scot in the employ of Queen Victorias
Navy when he struck an officer and in fear of punishment jumped ship at
Monterey. He married into the Ortega family, owners of a large land grant, and later
inherited many acres, which he gambled away. Died broke.
City web site:
www.ci.gilroy.ca.us
Gilroy School District: gusd.k12.ca.us
Chamber of commerce: www.gilroy.org
3/17/2010
