New owners are optimistic about reinvigorating the National Steinbeck Center.

Sara Rubin here, wondering what John Steinbeck’s characters would make of downtown Salinas of today. The cleaned-up neighborhood would be unrecognizable to them. The same goes for the modern building envisioned as an anchor, known previously as the National Steinbeck Center. 

As of today, it is known by a new name, One Main Street. And within a matter of days or weeks, whenever a pending deal closes escrow, the prominent property will have new owners. Two nonprofits—the National Steinbeck Center (currently a tenant in the building, and its former owner) and the Hartnell College Foundation—will assume 50/50 ownership from CSU Monterey Bay. (You can read more in tomorrow’s print edition of the Weekly.) 

The news about the deal was announced in One Main Street on Wednesday morning, with speakers from all three institutions. There was a palpable sense of optimism in the air about this transition. CSUMB acquired the center in 2015 and put it on the market over two years ago after President Vanya Quiñones arrived to a challenging budgetary climate. 

“When I took over we had enrollment pressure and budget pressure,” she says. “It was a financial decision.”

After CSUMB took ownership, the center served as a venue for some performing and visual arts events. But it never quite became the center of gravity that leaders hoped it would be, a pandemic notwithstanding. (Quiñones attributes this to the distance from CSUMB’s campus in Seaside, and she believes the proximity to Hartnell will help.) 

“As with any good book there are many chapters that move the story along,” National Steinbeck Center President Steve Emerson said in his remarks this morning. “Today we open a new chapter. It’s the deal that makes sense for all parties and has set the center up for long-term success.”

Hartnell Foundation Executive Director Jackie Cruz (also the VP of the Office of Institutional Advancement for Hartnell College) emphasized the importance of the venue serving as a cultural hub for downtown. 

“One Main Street is a place where education, innovation, community and culture meet,” she said.

That has always been the dream. The question now is whether this new partnership will fulfill it, despite some similarities. The Steinbeck Center sold the building to CSUMB in 2015. Now the Steinbeck Center is back, partnering with a different academic institution. 

I spoke to Willard Lewallen, a former Hartnell president who also serves on the boards of both new co-owners, the Hartnell Foundation and the Steinbeck Center. “The ideas were right but the hopes and all the things that could’ve happened here—it just sort of languished,” he says. “It was under-utilized, this tremendous resource sitting here in a strategic location that never reached its potential. 

“Now I think there’s an opportunity to reach that potential with these partnerships.” 

I hope he’s right. The community deserves a cultural gem in the space that was built to function as one.