A new name for Old Town: Salinas City Center
Old Town Salinas is getting a new name. An association of property owners in downtown Salinas is re-branding Old Town in hopes of attracting new businesses, construction and visitors to the area.
The new name: Salinas City Center.
The re-branding campaign is the work of the Salinas City Center Improvement Association, a group of downtown property and business owners. According to the group, marketing and beautification projects will be funded by a recently passed property owners’ assessment.
The group envisions a mixed-use downtown featuring new grocery stores, events, and art and entertainment venues in a 2-mile radius that stretches as far north as Market to San Luis streets and west from Capitol to Monterey streets.
“Our focus is really property-owner driven, so we want to make sure their needs are met,” said Margaret D’Arrigo-Martin with the District Improvement Identity Committee. “We’re going to really focus on the merchants as well, and retailers, so we want to make sure their needs are met as well.”
Some shop owners say now is the perfect time to attract new customers.
“We’re modernizing our jewelry, we’re bringing in new technology for that demographic, the millennials, where we do a lot more computer-aided drafting with our designs, just modernizing the whole system of creating jewelry,” said David McWherter with McWherter’s Jewelers.
The board is also rolling out the welcome mat for millennials and families with hopes that they will want to move in.
“Taylor Farms is building a few apartments over existing businesses, and new businesses, so that’s exciting,” D’Arrigo-Martin said. “There are new restaurants that are opening up soon. There will be lots of retail in the new Taylor building, we’re in the process of doing that now. So there’ll be a lot more here. I’d say in the next 3-6 months, you’re going to see a lot more activity.”
Down the road, a grocery store could be brought in. It’s welcome news for City Center resident Gabriel Alvizo, though he says he has mixed feelings about the transformation.
“I do and I don’t like it,” Alvizo said. “I don’t because I’m really selfish and I like how quiet it is here and you don’t see many tourists or people, big groups of people. I hang out at the coffee shop, the local coffee shop, the Cherry Bean. It’s really quiet. That’s my go-to place to think, read, meditate.”
A new logo is at the center of the branding campaign. The stylized letter S will be color-coded to identify various business sectors: retail (light orange), food/beverage (red), business services (green), parking (blue), art/entertainment (purple) and government/nonprofits (vibrant grey).
