The 250th anniversary of Monterey coincides with an era of prosperity for downtown.

The year was 1946, and Monterey was still feeling brash. World War II had recently ended in triumph, and the sardine era had not quite ended. And, it happened to be the 100-year anniversary of the raising of the American flag at the Custom House, which marked the seizure of California from Mexico. So for the Fourth of July, the city decided to throw a special bash.

There would be a parade down Alvarado Street with tens of thousands participating, including troops, marching bands and visiting dignitaries. In preparation, artists transformed the street’s storefronts, painting them with stencils of flowers and potted plants in shades of pastel. The civic atmosphere was so radiantly confident that city officials had Alvarado Street and its sidewalks spray-painted gold.

Now, Monterey is approaching another milestone, the 250th anniversary of its founding. The occasion must have triggered memories among the city’s oldest families because a few of them recently turned to City Manager Hans Uslar in hope of making Alvarado gold again.

Uslar is feeling as giddy as anyone about how well downtown Monterey is faring. But he had to politely shoot down the gold spray paint idea.

“We kind of had to say,” Uslar recalls, “that it doesn’t fit the image here today, and second, you cannot find the paint anymore that would be stormdrain-proof. And, third, we have a fiscal emergency,” he adds referring to the liabilities draining the municipal budget. “It doesn’t look good if we paint the street gold. The idea ran itself dead.”

Downtown Monterey has many reasons to celebrate. A decade ago, much of Alvarado Street was boarded up. Last year, for the first time in Uslar’s long history here, every storefront was rented out. In mid-2019, sales tax revenue was up by 15 percent from a year prior.

Someone outside city government who can speak to the transformation is Rick Johnson. His official title is executive director of the Old Monterey Business Association, but he might best be referred to as leader of the cheer team for local commerce and culture.

He recalls the 2007 fire that consumed a massive chunk of Alvarado Street, leaving behind a gaping hole. “Twenty-six businesses were lost in the fire and then there was the great recession,” he says. “It was the perfect storm. But we survived and are doing extremely well.”

For Johnson, Monterey’s historic boom-and-bust cycle – from Spanish capital to whaling to fishing to hospitality – is a result of the city’s “unique ability to reinvent itself.” He points to Monterey Conference Center, which is “booked solid” for the next few years and brings business to downtown establishments. “Recently, we had a group of 1,000 looking to have lunch,” he says. He adds, however, that the best way to serve those visitors is to balance their needs with those of the local residents.

“When you visit a town you want to go where the locals go,” he says. “They want authenticity and its locals that create it.” That’s one reason Johnson is a fan of mixed-use housing: “We have built a village above downtown.”

One establishment that’s beloved by locals and tourists alike and is a key to the downtown’s revitalization is Alvarado Street Brewery. John Hill and his son founded the brewery in 2014 and around the same time, Hill says, two other important things happened. New construction replaced the scar left by the 2007 fire and the Golden State Theatre came under new ownership, which revamped the venue.

Hill says that the brewery has grown every year it’s been in business. (It’s one of the few locally owned spots to rank in the city’s top 25 sales tax generators, alongside CVS, Macy’s, Chevron and Whole Foods.)

What’s more, several new breweries that have opened nearby don’t seem to be hurting his operation. There’s a friendly atmosphere among competitors. “It seems like downtown is simply building on itself,” Hill says. “There’s a renaissance. Compared to when we got here, it’s much livelier.”