Hollister takes next step to grow city with three new businesses opening

HOLLISTER, Calif. (KION-TV)- Ross, Famous Footwear, and Boot Barn are now able to call Hollister home.

This is allowing people who live in the city to stay here without having to travel miles and miles away like local resident Ruby Mendoza.

“Especially right now,” Mendoza said. “Gas prices. It’s totally awesome and convenient for me, and I’m pretty sure for a lot of families here in town.”

It's also not just the community that’s happy these stores are here.

Those that work for the city, like President and CEO of San Benito Chamber of Commerce Michelle Leonard, are glad they were able to accomplish changing plots of land into a business plaza.

“Things like this just don’t happen overnight,” Leonard said. “A lot of work had to go into the care, the cultivation of a project like this before those shovels hit the ground a year ago.”

But with more people comes the potential for more crime.

The city says police will patrol the area as they do other parts of the city. According to local resident Crystal Villarreal, the stores have measures in place too.

“I think that having the security in front of the stores is good, like Famous Footwear has,” Villarreal said. “Also, I saw at Ross. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen, but it might just happen because of all the crime that’s going on.”

City leaders urge people if they do see a crime happening anywhere in Hollister, to report it immediately. That way, stores like this can continue to open and add revenue to the city.

“I think that they should all should come out and shop here,” Villarreal said. “Spend some money in our city. It’s a great city that we are in."

I'm also hearing multiple other stores are scheduled to open in November.