Redevelopment Zone Dwellers Fear Future

Eleanor Smith, 93, shifted nervously in her rocking chair, while half a world away a giant Japanese firm approved plans for the city’s next major hotel.

“Lord only knows where I’ll go,” said the thin, white-haired woman, who lives on the site of the proposed Sheraton Hotel. “Where is there a place for me?”

City Redevelopment Agency appraisers had been to her neat studio in the Watson Apartments a few days before, measuring rooms and taking notes, said Smith, a Long Beach resident since 1908.

“Two boys came in and I talked with one, but he really didn’t tell me anything,” she said. “I’ve always been independent, but I’m practically blind, and now I’ve come to this.”

Shared Anxiety

Eleanor Smith’s anxiety is shared by dozens of other residents and shopkeepers who live and work on a square block across Ocean Boulevard from the Convention Center and smack in the middle of the 421-acre downtown redevelopment zone.

Jewelers, tailors, weavers and barbers. Coin shops, thrift stores, cafes and girlie shows. The Sheraton block and its people are the Redevelopment Agency’s latest venture in the difficult business of eviction and resettlement, demolition and reconstruction.

The agency, which has displaced 268 businesses and about 1,000 residents since 1975 in a billion-dollar redevelopment, is now taking its first steps in a yearlong process that could lead to the Sheraton’s construction next spring.

Already there is fear of the unknown, said Harry Ladas, longtime director of the agency’s relocation efforts.

“What we have now is an understandable anxiety about what is going to happen and how soon,” he said.

Long Aware of Prospect

Renters and owners on the Sheraton block have known for a long time that their buildings would be razed as soon as a developer with big plans and a hefty bank account could be found. Since 1982, Newport Beach businessman Stanley Cohen has been that developer.

Securing extension after extension from the Redevelopment Agency, Cohen has sought financing for a 500-room Sheraton to be joined by an atrium with a 24-story office tower.

Cohen, co-developer of the nearby Crocker Plaza office building, has now found a partner in North American Taisei Corp., a subsidiary of Japan’s largest engineering, construction and real estate company. Taisei’s board of directors on Thursday authorized the signing of a development agreement with the city and a joint-venture contract with Cohen, apparently clearing the way for construction.

The project--bounded by Ocean, Long Beach Boulevard, First Street and Elm Avenue--would cost $125 million and would be the largest so far in downtown Long Beach. Its expected completion date is 1988.

Roger Anderman, redevelopment officer, said the city supports the Sheraton project. “We aren’t aware of any hurdles (left),” he said. “The major hurdle has been financial and (gaining) the involvement of Taisei.”

If all goes smoothly, the City Council and Redevelopment Agency will vote jointly on the project by early July, officials said. As the approval process has moved forward in recent days, those of the Sheraton block, their curiosity piqued by the presence of city appraisers, were anxious for the latest word.

Eager for information, half a dozen First Street shop owners emptied onto a sidewalk Tuesday morning to join a conversation about their probable relocation.

J. W. Hinton, a barber since 1941 who still charges $1.75 for a haircut, wondered if he might squeeze in another two years before retirement.

Can’t Match Low Rents

Graphics designer Joyce Hutter and television repairman Curtis Harry said there is no way they can match the $100 and $125 monthly rents they now pay. At a corner dry cleaners, proprietor Linda Cho, a Korean immigrant and divorced mother of two boys, said, “Across the street they want $850 a month. Here I pay $150, so I’m very upset. Most of my customers are from Edison Building. I make good living, sure, but now I’m worried. I don’t know, sir, where I go, sir.”

Tenants in nine stores and four apartments need the cheap rents of her 1933-vintage building, said owner Marge LaBranch. “This is where the little people start small. But if the city wants this building, they’ll take it.”

But not all who inhabit the block are upset by the prospect of new construction. Christian Kear, proprietor for 27 years of a luxury gift shop now sandwiched between two Spanish-language movie houses, said, “I’m for getting this all cleaned up, and if the new hotel needs an elegant gift shop, I have the experience.”

If the hotel is approved as expected this summer, Eleanor Smith, Marge LaBranch and their neighbors will begin hearing from redevelopment officials who will explain relocation benefits. In all, 21 business owners--including operators of the historic Fox West Coast Theater and the residents of 72 apartments in the LaBranch rentals, Watson Apartments and the Biltmore Hotel--will be contacted.

Purchase Offer

Smith, owner of her Watson apartment since 1963, and other owners will receive almost immediately a formal offer of purchase, with the price determined in part by recent sales of similar properties in the same area.

About two months after the first offer, condemnation suits will be filed by the city against those who refuse to sell. Residents and owners will then have another three months to leave, said David Biggs, the Redevelopment Agency’s manager of the Sheraton project. Negotiations sometimes continue through the entire five- to six-month period, he said.

“It’s not a matter of, ‘My God, I’ve got to move next week or even next month,’ ” said Ladas.

As the process continues, the city helps both residents and business operators find replacement homes and stores, said Ladas.

Apartment owners such as Eleanor Smith are entitled to the appraised value of their dwellings and to additional payments of up to $15,000 if they buy a comparable residence that costs more than the city paid for their old one, said Ladas. Moving costs are also paid, he said.

In Smith’s case, because her income is low, she could qualify for government senior citizen housing downtown, said Ladas. Those displaced by redevelopment move to the top of a lengthy waiting list for such projects, he said. “In her case, we’d actually put her in a car and show her properties,” said Ladas. “She wouldn’t have any difficulty in qualifying or finding a unit.”

Apartment renters are eligible for a lump-sum payment of up to $4,000 to cover the difference for four years between current rent and the probable higher rent of a comparable dwelling, Ladas said. They also receive moving costs.

2 Kinds of Benefits

Business operators who have been in their locations for at least six months qualify for two types of benefits, said Ladas. They can take a single payment of up to $10,000 based on income. Businesses that have lost money are eligible for a $2,500 minimum payment.

But, if the owners want to move their businesses, the procedure is more elaborate. The city pays moving expenses as determined by sealed bid once both parties agree on a suitable replacement store, said Ladas. Other benefits also may be forthcoming.

For example, if Linda Cho chooses to move her dry cleaning business, the city will make improvements on the new building, said Ladas. If Cho signs a lease at the new location covering a period of five years or more, she will be eligible for up to $50,000 in building improvements if those improvements are “reasonable and required,” he said.

There have been several businesses where benefits increased to $75,000 when an operator chose to buy a building instead of leasing it, he said. Moving costs, sometimes of thousands of dollars, are also paid. “We’ve had a few medium-sized restaurants paid in the neighborhood of $100,000 total,” he said.

Cho, however, would receive no payment to make up for increased rent, Ladas said. Payments have occasionally been made to make up for the loss of customers because of a move, he said.

“We’re not trying to drive the businessman out of business,” said Ladas.

Appraisals Called Low

In some past cases, however, relocated business owners have complained bitterly about what they describe as low Redevelopment Agency appraisals of their property and agency reluctance to award benefits.

For instance, in the agency’s first major project, the Plaza Mall shopping complex, 62 of 66 property owners challenged the property appraisals of the agency, city officials have said. Almost all settled for better offers out of court, with only six cases going to trial.

Robert DeWeese, whose luggage repair business was moved to Long Beach Boulevard to make way for the mall and who will have to move again for the Sheraton, remembers his relocation as “a nightmare.”

Owner of Richie’s Luggage, a family business for 50 years, DeWeese said, “I had a business with 4,000 square feet of space and now I have 1,000. I made $30,000 a year and now I might make $1,000 a month. I was out of business for a year and a half after the move, and then I lost $10,000 a year for three years. I just started making a profit last fall, now I’m faced with this whole business all over again.”

In retrospect, DeWeese said he made a bad situation worse by suing the agency. “I attacked them and, in turn, they attacked me. I see now what a major error that was. But I still feel if it hadn’t been for me and others who went to court, they wouldn’t be paying the type of benefits they’re paying now.”

DeWeese, 37, said he expects no problems this time around. “I hear things have been going smoothly, that they’ve started paying all the claims. And I’ve gained confidence in the Redevelopment Agency. I have to admit that in what they’re doing the good outweighs the bad.”