Despite the end of the 28-year streak of the World’s Largest Garage Sale, Evanston business officials hope Evansfest 2000 will continue bringing an onslaught of shoppers to the area in the last weekend of July.

Evanston City Council passed a proposal Monday night to replace the garage sale with Evansfest, a festival designed to promote the downtown area with sidewalk sales, street entertainment and presentations by community groups. The festival, which will take place July 28-30, will be sponsored by Evmark, the company in charge of marketing and promoting downtown Evanston.

The Evanston Chamber of Commerce announced in April that the Garage Sale would be canceled this summer because of the demolition of Sherman Avenue Garage, the traditional site for the event.

“We basically said that we’d like to try and fill in the weekend of the World’s Largest Garage Sale with this new festival,” said Terry Jenkins, director of Evmark. “It’s a weekend people are used to, so we thought it would be a good idea.”

The Garage Sale, which was created by the Chamber of Commerce in 1972, was initially a venue for local residents to sell unwanted goods. Through the years it evolved into a sort of flea market for both local and national businesses to sell their merchandise.

Downtown vendors are excited about the return of a sidewalk sale festival that will focus on Evanston businesses, said Tom Fischl, owner of O’Fischl Sports, 1521 Sherman Ave.

According to Fischl, the World’s Largest Garage Sale “used to be a phenomenal event, but in recent years it has become a detriment to Evanston. There was no way to filter the non-local businesses that sold at the booths.”

Kellie Poulos, owner of the women’s boutique Asinamali, 522 Davis St., said she also is excited for the additional entertainment and activities that Evansfest will bring.

“It will be a lot more exciting than the Garage Sale,” Poulos said. “Families will enjoy the activities and the music, and merchants will be able to be more involved.”

Eliminating the garage-sale portion of the event and transferring all sales and entertainment to downtown sidewalks would be more beneficial to local vendors, Fischl said.

“Assuming it turns out to be as is told, I look forward to what this will bring back to Evanston,” said Judy Steele, owner of Wild Child, 612 Davis St. “Besides causing our regular customers to turn away, (the garage sale created) too much congestion in the area.”

Although Evmark is providing most of the funding for the event, it is also working with local merchants and Northwestern University/ Evanston Research Park officials to make it a cooperative effort, Jenkins said.