Hollister a tourism hotspot?

Spend anytime along San Benito Street and you know things can get dicey.

“I almost get run over every day out there,” Kevin Burke, a U.S. Postal Worker said.

“The road is like a highway,” Hollister Mayor Ignacio Velazquez said. “People are racing through.”

So he wants to change that.

“We want to be more of a tourist destination,” Velazquez explained. “So we want to work on our downtown to bring in more tourism.”

But first he’s got to put the brakes on the current design. Resurface and restripe. The four-lane roadway will turn into two with an added bike lane. The work should wrap up in four to six months.

Velazquez says there’s already a new hotel in the works and early talks of a new shopping mall. There are also newly installed fiber optic cables that could draw in more tech companies. In fact, he says one is studying the viability of doing business in the city, which could bring in more people.

“They’re able to come downtown and have a cup of coffee,” Kathina Szeto, owner of San Benito Bene said. “(They can) come and shop, learn more about the agriculturally-influenced products and the growers, the history and just the nice atmosphere we have.”

The nice atmosphere could also include more parks – Sports parks for tournaments and dog parks for neighbors. And the mayor says, it’s all in an effort to make Hollister the new hotspot.