3-Year Project to Spiff Up Broadway Begins

Mayor Tom Bradley and other city officials braved dank, blustery weather Monday for a stroll up Broadway to launch a three-year revitalization project in what already is the most successful business district in downtown Los Angeles.

The Community Redevelopment Agency will vote Wednesday on a proposal by the nonprofit Miracle on Broadway corporation to finance the first year of the project. The corporation’s plans call for the CRA to contribute $931,000, with merchants kicking in another $612,000, over the next three years.

The money would be spent on development of new standards to improve signs, lighting and sidewalks; additional security and street maintenance; an expanded trash collection and disposal system; development of a cooperative advertising and marketing program for individual merchants and the hiring of an executive director to oversee the project.

There is even talk of a trolley line down the middle of the street to haul shoppers down from the Civic Center and up from the financial district.

Donald R. Spivak, a CRA project manager, told Bradley that the four-block section of Broadway between 7th and 3rd streets--an area of movie theaters, markets, fast-food restaurants and small shops that cater largely to the Latino community--is already the No. 1 downtown shopping district in terms of shoppers and retail business.

Annual sales in the district are estimated at $350 million. Rents are said to rival those on Beverly Hills’ trendy Rodeo Drive.

But trendy, Broadway is not.

While shoppers reach Rodeo Drive by limousine, they get to Broadway on the bus. Broadway’s customers aren’t fingering the exquisite leathers of Gucci handbags, they’re rummaging through piles of T-shirts at three for $1.

And Broadway has some real problems these days--among them the exodus of two major department stores, a high crime rate and a tendency toward grime and litter.

The local business owners behind the project hope to spruce up the neighborhood without destroying the tradition of small, independent entrepreneurs noisily hawking colorful, inexpensive merchandise.

Evon Gotlieb, an account supervisor with Braun & Co., a consulting firm that helped develop the Miracle on Broadway concept, said there is talk of remodeling the old, now vacant, Broadway department store at 4th and Broadway to house retail stores and offices, although plans are not complete.

“We’d also like to see some new department stores, perhaps one that is part of a chain in Mexico,” she said.

Some of the refurbishing work has already begun.

Colorful tile has replaced drab concrete sidewalks in front of a number of small businesses along Broadway. Remodeling is being done in the Spanish-Mexican motif, as exemplified by a McDonald’s between 3rd and 4th that features post-Columbian architecture splashed with Aztec murals.

“Broadway is going to be clean, it’s going to be safe,” Bruce Corwin, a local property owner and project co-chairman, told Bradley at a news conference under the marquee of the Million Dollar Theater at 3rd and Broadway.

“It’s not just a pipe dream,” Bradley responded. “It’s something that will become a reality.”