The Mercury News ran a nostalgia feature today on Los Gatos' "unchanged" downtown. The planning docket tells a different story: a 1924 building stripped from the Historic Resources Inventory, three active mixed-use projects on those celebrated blocks, and two boutique storefronts closed since last summer.

At 647 N. Santa Cruz Avenue in downtown Los Gatos, a building from 1924 is no longer on the town's protected list. On February 25, the Planning Commission voted 5-2 to remove it from the Historic Resources Inventory — overruling the Historic Preservation Committee, which had voted 4-1 in November to keep it there. The owner, Michael Amidi, is now cleared to pursue a 58-unit mixed-use development on the site.

The vote didn't land in any particular spotlight. The Mercury News published a piece this morning celebrating the same corridor as "a window to the past," its residents telling the reporter that "it's always been the same little downtown." The building at 647 got no mention.

Several more changes are active on these same blocks. Down on East Main Street, a 30-unit, 4-story building with six affordable units was approved by the Town Council 3-2 in May 2025 — a project requiring demolition of the space occupied by Cafe Dio, whose fate after approval remains unconfirmed. On Los Gatos Boulevard, Ace Hardware and Rural Supply closed in November 2024; that site is now the proposed Arya project, 182 condos with a possible rooftop restaurant, currently in environmental review.

Two Santa Cruz Avenue boutiques — Jackie'O and East Kennedy — shuttered their physical storefronts in July 2025 and moved online. No organized merchant coalition has emerged around the closures.

Los Gatos' downtown corridor sits within the National Register of Historic Places as the Los Gatos Historic Commercial District (listing #91001382), roughly five acres straddling Main Street, Santa Cruz Avenue, and University Avenue. Of 25 buildings in the district, 19 are classified as contributing to its historic character; the six non-contributing buildings carry relaxed modification rules.

The pressure behind the votes is structural: the state has set a mandate for Los Gatos to produce 847 affordable units by 2031. That target has driven a string of split decisions — 3-2 at the Town Council, 4-1 and 5-2 at the Planning Commission — on projects that advance without consensus. On Tuesday, the Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the town's Objective Design Standards update, a draft released June 18 that will shape what the next wave of buildings on these blocks looks like.

Residents walking Santa Cruz Avenue this Sunday — cycling, picking up flowers at the farmers market, stopping for lattes at Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company — see the same cheerful shopfronts and awnings the Mercury News described. The planning calendar, block by block, shows what's queued up behind them.