Lodi: It’s a stylish blend of old and new
Lodi is an engaging blend of the old and new.
It is a contemporary community with a glitzy downtown cinema, a stylishly renovated performing arts center and upper-scale restaurants.
But Lodi, unlike many communities favored by tourists, also remains an authentic Valley town.
Its roots still run deep in the sandy clay loam, with a large and productive cannery, thousands of acres of working vineyards and a giant General Mills plant that produces Cheerios and many other food products.
It is a town that has updated its style without losing its sense of history.
With a population of 60,000, Lodi is large enough to offer variety and interest, small enough to retain a sense of charm.
In recent years, it is wine that has propelled the local economy, and wine that has attracted visitors by the legion.
Lodi has a temperate climate, with moist winters and sunny summers tempered by breezes rising from the Delta.
It’s an ideal place to grow wine grapes, which have been cultivated in the area since the 1850s.
Once a producer of ho-hum jug wines, the Lodi area now produces outstanding varietals that consistently bring home the gold and silver at national and even international competitions.
Today Lodi leads all California wine districts in the production of the top five premium varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel. (Locals are especially proud of the old vine Zinfandels.)Visitors will find plenty of wine tasting opportunities in settings that are pleasant and personal. That fellow pouring you a generous taste of Merlot may just be the vintner who lovingly produced it.
The area’s wine industry has a reputation for quality — and for embracing progressive growing practices that minimize the use of pesticides and other chemicals.
Embroidered by vineyards and wineries, Lodi’s center is still its downtown. The central district was renovated through an innovative public-private partnership that invested in new streets, sidewalks, planters and street lights.
The crowning touch was a new arch on School Street at Lodi Avenue that artfully incorporates touches of colored tile and twinings of grapevines. It extends the theme of Lodi as a city of arches; the town’s original arch gracefully rises over Pine Street downtown and remains the community’s iconic image.
Downtown’s rebirth was nurtured by the creation of a 12-screen, all-the-frills cinema. Since it opened, new cafes and shops have clustered, as hoped, around the sprawling movie house, adding variety and vitality to downtown’s shopping, dining and cultural scene.
A new edifice downtown, opened in late 2003, is the public safety building. Part of the city’s downtown campus that includes City Hall and the Carnegie Forum, the public safety center is a state-of-the-art operation that includes a jail, dispatch center, and work-out room for police employees.
Visitors will find Lodi’s downtown residential neighborhoods reminiscent of an earlier time, when homes were individually designed and crafted, when hardwood floors were the norm, broad front porches were mandatory and the backyards were big enough to cultivate copious amounts of tomatoes and daffodils.
Lodi is well-known for its varied and beautifully maintained stock of bungalows and residents have staged several events celebrating these stylish and functional structures.
At the edge of downtown is Hutchins Street Square. A former high school, the center was renovated (again through a public-private partnership) and now includes a majestic theater, meeting and convention quarters, a swimming pool, and a senior day care operation.
On the Mokelumne River, a new dam is rising to help flood control, enhance the local fishery and allow Lodi Lake to remain full year-round (It is now drained during the rainy season.)Exploring Lodi, visitors will find repeated examples of things old and things reborn.
It’s part of the town’s charm — and it’s character.