A Friday night family friendly event with a farmers market and more is scheduled to kick off in Santa Maria this week — weather willing — as a key step toward transforming the city’s downtown core.
At least 60 vendors, live music, a kids zone and food — “a lot of a food, a whole lot of different types of food,” organizer Ed Carcarey said — are planned for the Downtown Fridays Santa Maria, in addition to beer and wine.
The event is planned from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays through at least September in the Town Center West parking lot on the south side of Fallas.
The idea for a weekly gathering with entertainment, food and fun for families arose as part of the efforts to update the Santa Maria Downtown Specific Plan.
“One of the big goals is to get more people downtown with more events,” said city spokesman Mark van de Kamp, who added that Downtown Fridays is designed for families, fun, fresh produce and community camaraderie.
The Friday night event is in addition to the midday farmers market at a nearby location each Wednesday.
Emerald Wave Media’s Carcarey and Sofia Lariz are spearheading the planning in conjunction with the city.
“We’re really excited,” said van de Kamp. “We’re definitely behind it.”
During a meeting last year, Planning Division Manager Peter Gilli and his colleagues shared the staff’s vision for the new Downtown Specific Plan, with one facet calling for events to bring people to the area in addition to beautification projects.
Coincidentally, the idea of a downtown event privately had been discussed by Carcarey and Lariz months earlier.
“As soon as he was done talking, I made a beeline to him, told him what Sofia’s idea was and I think Peter almost kissed me … because he was so excited about it,” Carcarey said.
He and Lariz stepped up to help plan the event, building upon their experience hosting concerts regularly. Emerald Wave Media owns Mega 97.1 plus two Spanish stations, FM La Buena 105.1 and AM Ranchito at 1600.
“It was the perfect storm. It all happened at the same time,” Carcarey said.
He said the fact Santa Maria didn’t have a farmers market with an entertainment twist like other cities prompted them to get involved.
“Second, I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines, complaining about the downtown and Santa Maria and nothing happening, nothing to do,” he said. “We need to change our city.”
City staff has helped launch the new event, Carcarey said. “They’re very passionate about this, they focused.”
The event is meant to seasonal through September, with October left open for possible rain-out dates.
Each week will have a different entertainment, with Suave launching the event with songs in Spanish and English.
“Some of the bands we chose because of our demographic,” Carcarey said.
“We’re not San Luis, we’re not Santa Barbara, we’re Santa Maria so we have unique demographic and we’ll try to match that demographic.”
Other entertainment also is planned, with a fire dancer set to entertain the crowd Friday night.
“Every week we’ll have something that will be special, whether it’s a cheer squad from a local school or one of the groups is third-graders, they have a ukulele band,” he said.
The dark cloud hanging over the inaugural Downtown Fridays is a forecast for rain.
“It is a tad bit frustrating, but we need the rain desperately. If we get it, all I told our group is we’re pushing the start date back a week and we’ll end it a week later,” Carcarey said.
“It’s all good. It’ll still happen. It will just cause a little bit of a speed bump in logistics. And a few gray hairs, too.”
He expects to make a final decision to proceed or delay by 2 p.m. Friday after examining weather forecasts, currently calling for rain in the morning and late night.
In addition to parking around Town Center West, attendees can park at the Cook Street parking structure at Town Center East, with the Downtown Trolley available to transport people to the site, city officials said.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.