Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival Puts Downtown in the Spotlight

Perhaps in no year more than this 32nd year will the venerable Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival be more welcome downtown.

The arts and wine festival has a strong reputation as a showcase for juried, fine-quality arts and crafts and local wines in what its website says is one of the largest summer festivals of its kind in the Bay Area. Family-friendly, with activities and music, it's the kind of destination event that pulls from all over the Bay Area.

Yet the high-cachet affair with outsized drawing power returns Saturday to a downtown that is pretty on the outside and aching on the inside.

The city's prolonged intersection beautification project—which has far outlasted its initial completion date—dealt a body blow to businesses that have been staggering through the economic downturn.

Construction affected both parking and the ability to walk around downtown up until late. The festival will give many a first glimpse of the transformation, maybe even a boost to the downtown businesses.

Visitors from as far away as Sausalito might find the newly installed landscaping and colored cement crosswalks aesthetically pleasing. But it's the Los Altans and neighbors from Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Cupertino or Sunnyvale that merchants hope will find downtown an attractive place to return to regularly.

At the very least, they hope locals will notice that downtown is open. That is, accessible.

That's no small thing. Downtown has been under construction since last October, .

Nancy Dunaway, executive director of the Los Altos Village Association (LAVA), told the Los Altos City Council in a that businesses on First Street will be in “a difficult situation” during the .

What she and others didn't know was that it was the beautification project on the intersections that was going to test merchants further.

On March 16 when construction started on the intersections, LAVA's Twitter presence, LosAltosVillage, jauntily tweeted, "The intersection construction in downtown Los Altos has begun! Fun for the kids to see the equipment! Shops, streets; everything is open!"

By May 23, the tweets were remonstrative: "What, you're going to let a little bulldozer keep you from your favorite pair of shoes and your Peet's coffee? Not! Shop downtown Los Altos!"

The work being done around the main parts of the festival—Third and State streets, Third and Main streets, Second and State streets, and Second and Main streets—will be mostly completely by Friday, said Jonny Cortez, superintendent of Guerra Construction Group, the company contracted to work on those sections of downtown.

“The project turned out better than I expected, but the process was longer, and not what I was expecting,” Cortez said. He was referring to the where none was indicated on the city records—even though the city had installed them in 1967.

Solving that problem, combined with the unusually rainy spring—and even June—contributed to a long delay. The project's new goal was being finished before the festival.

There are different projects on other streets, Cortez said. “But we’ll be about 97 percent done by Friday, with only touch-up after.”

Just in time, downtown will be transformed with food, art, crafts, wine, music and activities to enjoy from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, with earth-friendly transportation.

GreenTown Los Altos offers a free bike valet service for local riders. Just park bicycles by Chase Bank on Third Street at Main Street, across from the Kids’ Zone, and someone will watch over the bikes, according to Mary Gospe of GreenTown.

Additionally, as in years past, there will be a free parking at Los Altos High School and a free shuttle from the high school to the event both days.