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Business leaders and residents urge downtown revitalization; council includes gateway work in top priorities
Summary
Public speakers and business association leaders called on the City Council to make downtown safety, cleanliness and marketing a higher priority; the council later ranked gateway beautification among its top items.
Gilroy — During the public‑comment period of the study session, downtown stakeholders urged the council to make tangible investments to revive downtown retail and foot traffic.
Gary Walton told the council that downtown Gilroy lags peer cities in sales tax per acre and urged a strategic, intentional plan and investments to close that gap. “There’s a huge opportunity because of what we have,” Walton said, arguing that targeted investment could double or triple downtown sales tax receipts compared with nearby cities.
David Liao and Amber Atterbury — who identified herself as chair of the local downtown business association — echoed that call. Atterbury cited research showing walkable downtowns can generate substantially higher retail sales and asked for priorities this morning on public safety, cleanliness, vacancy reduction, and marketing to make downtown more family‑friendly and attractive to visitors and businesses.
Council members responded that downtown revitalization relates to several items on the work plan, including gateway beautification, economic development work the council recently funded, code enforcement, and the parks and amenities master plan. Staff said they would incorporate the downtown input into the economic development work plan and return with options for programming, partnerships and funding.
