L.A. Shopping Area Gets a Face Lift : Banners Signal Effort to Revitalize Broadway

The vibrant two-tone banners that flutter on lamp posts lining Broadway between 1st Street and Olympic Boulevard are not a late-blooming Olympic effort but the first phase of the multimillion-dollar Broadway Redevelopment Project, which will replace street and sidewalk surfaces and provide loans for property owners to spruce up storefronts.

The 10-block area in downtown Los Angeles, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a colorful fiesta of taco stands, clothing and jewelry shops and street vendors that cater to a lively Latino community.

Merchants there like the colorful new pennants that hail the project’s beginning, but are also concerned with ever-present trash and street derelicts, which they say detract from the shopping district’s appearance.

Trash Everywhere

“I like the banners--they’re very pretty,” said Alicia Saca, owner of Licha’s Restaurant, “But if the streets were cleaner, it would attract more people. I go out every morning and clean in front of my restaurant, but the rest of it. . . .” She shrugged, gesturing at the trash up and down the street.

Her business fronts on one of the areas where the original concrete sidewalks have been resurfaced with brown tile interspersed with bold motifs in primary colors.

The redevelopment project is being sponsored by the Community Redevelopment Agency, the Broadway Task Force and the City of Los Angeles, using funds from city property taxes.

It evolved out of a proposal made four or five years ago to move the Los Angeles Central Library to Broadway, said CRA’s senior project manager, Donald Spivack. At the time, several other proposals to change Broadway were considered, ranging from creating an open pedestrian mall to turning the street into a highway.

The current plan will be implemented in four phases, Spivack said.

The sidewalks will be redone, property by property, in the style already in place on some stretches between 1st and 4th streets. Spivack estimates it will cost $1.5 million and take three years to finish the resurfacing from 1st to Olympic.

The banners, which pick up the Latin American graphic design of the sidewalks, went up Dec. 31 and make up the second part of the project. They will be replaced every six to eight months as they wear out, he said.

Another $2 million of the project’s money has been placed in a revolving loan fund for property owners who want to renovate or restore their buildings, and $125,000 has been set aside for storefront cleaning, to be distributed on a matching-funds basis, Spivack said. Some money is also going into a seismic study which will determine which buildings on Broadway are earthquake safe.

Street to Be Rebuilt

Finally, the 70-year-old street will be rebuilt from curb to curb, when the sidewalk project is completed. Spivack estimated the reconstruction, jointly financed by the CRA and the city, will cost $3 million.

Although most Broadway merchants interviewed were pleased by the banners and redone sidewalks, they agreed that a surface makeover of the district would not solve more persistent problems.

“People just throw everything down on the streets, and they even use the tree planters because the wire trash cans get stolen,” said Sydney Green, an optometrist who has operated an eye care clinic at 551 S. Broadway for 39 years. “If we had a regular cleanup, that would be a tremendous improvement, more important than new facings or anything.”

“I like the banners because they’re something different, but something needs to be done about the bums on the street,” said a clerk at Sussy’s Bridal and Formal Wear, who identified herself as Norma. “We need more police patrol because the streets are very dangerous, especially when I get off work at night.”

Trash-Control Plan

Spivack said the city is aware of the current street appearance and has planned a trash-control program. “Broadway is one of the busiest streets in the U.S. and what we need are crews of people to empty trash cans and keep the sidewalks clean,” he said.

Another goal of the project is to organize Broadway merchants, not only for the purpose of discussing such problems, but also to plan regular parades and cultural events, Spivack said.

“We want to let people know that Broadway exists and that it’s an integral part of downtown Los Angeles,” he said. “We want to revitalize and stabilize the Broadway area as a prime retail district with this project and, with the cultural events, let people know there are more things they can do downtown.”