Outgrowing the Past : Distinctive Sawtelle Neighborhood Gives Way to Development

The Yamaguchi store on Sawtelle Boulevard has been a fixture in the Sawtelle Japanese-American community for 39 years.

Local children can buy candy at the old-fashioned counter and adults can purchase everything from gifts to rice steamers.

But owners Hank and Jack Yamaguchi say they are uneasy about the rash of new office and retail buildings on a street better known for its nurseries and sushi bars--a street that some say is the center of the West Los Angeles Japanese-American community.

“All I know is our customers don’t like it. The feeling is different,” Hank Yamaguchi says. “The whole environment has changed.”

“It’s already ruined,” a Japanese-American customer agreed.

For more than a decade, Sawtelle Boulevard has been at the center of a debate between landowners, who want to build high-rises between Olympic and Santa Monica boulevards, and residents and small merchants who want to preserve the neighborhood. Last August, the City Council imposed a three-story height limit on new construction after the long battle.

City Councilman Marvin Braude says the limit has helped. “It would have been a disaster if we had more six- and seven-story buildings on the street,” Braude said.

Angry at Planning

But others are angry at what they see as a failure in planning. “I think the City Council and the Planning Commission should be shot for allowing all of these buildings before widening the street,” said a person who works in the area.

One thing is certain: The northern part of Sawtelle has taken on a new look.

Four new buildings have been completed, including a three-story brick building that takes up nearly an entire block, between La Grange and Missouri avenues, and the Sawtelle Center with a potpourri of ethnic restaurants. Bulldozers and cranes are a common sight and it is not unusual for traffic to back up for blocks on the two-lane street.

There are still many Japanese stores and restaurants, but more than 200,000 square feet of office space has been built on Sawtelle, which is facing the development pressure that has hit the entire Westside. A phalanx of high-rise buildings is proposed on Olympic, the southern flank of the Sawtelle community.

Real estate agents say that land prices are lower on Sawtelle than on Olympic, Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards. Despite the height limit and congestion, there are incentives for developing Sawtelle, they say.

“The whole Westside is exploding. It’s a natural outgrowth of the Olympic corridor,” said Cushman & Wakefield broker Gina Webb.

Although Sawtelle is beginning to look like many other Westside streets, it has a rich history. The area was originally settled by Mexican, and later Japanese, immigrants who worked as farm laborers before World War II.

When the Japanese-Americans returned from relocation camps after World War II, many became gardeners and several opened up nurseries. There were 30 wholesale and several backyard nurseries in the area in 1959, according to Sid Yamazaki, the president of the West Los Angeles Japanese American Citizens League, who did a study on the nurseries as a UCLA student.

Today the area still has a sizable Japanese-American population of more than 2,000. Residents send their children to the Japanese Institute of Sawtelle, a language school, and shop at the Japanese markets. Many attend the Buddhist and Methodist churches that conduct services in Japanese. But the ministers of both churches say their congregations are predominantly made up of people who are over 50 and the younger generation is leaving the the area.

The Nora Sterry Elementary School on the northern end of Sawtelle tells the story of shifting demographics. According to Yamazaki, a former administrator there, the school was once evenly divided among three ethnic groups: Japanese-American, Latino and white. Now most of the students are Latino, he said.

In the past decade, Latinos have moved back into the area. Large numbers wait for day labor and live in cramped apartments.

Some longtime residents fear the onslaught of the new development.

“The impact has been that the big businesses and buildings monopolize the area,” said Sylvester Navarette, a resident for 45 years. “They take over and really don’t . . . contribute to the community.”

Widening Proposed

But more development may be on the way. Kenneth H. Naramura, president of the Sawtelle Community Assn., and Donn F. Morey, its vice president, are spearheading a proposal to widen Sawtelle and place the utilities underground. The change, which could lead to consideration of a six-story height limit, could add millions of square feet in new commercial office and retail space.

Last year, Naramura and Morey submitted a petition to the city from property owners in favor of the proposal. They also submitted a traffic study by Crain & Associates that concluded that the street could support 2.7 million square feet of office and retail space after the widening.

The City Council approved a Braude-sponsored motion to study the proposal. The city engineer conducting the study said that there is little room left to widen the street. “It’s going to be cozy, that’s for sure,” said Mike Stafford.

A number of merchants, including the owners of two Japanese markets, said they are opposed to widening, which could bring the street right up to their storefronts.

Before the project can go forward, the city would have to conduct a public hearing and create an assessment district. Braude said that he doubts property owners will want to pay for the widening.

The issue is one in a long line of disputes. In 1973, the community successfully opposed a city proposal to widen Sawtelle, claiming that it would ruin the neighborhood. In the early 1980s, a battle erupted after the city approved a seven-story building on the street. At the time, there were no height limits. Braude sponsored a building moratorium, which eventually led to the three-story height limit.

In 1983, there was an unsuccessful attempt by the planning department to develop a plan to maintain the street’s character in the face of new development.

Sparse Hearing

The proposal called for special building requirements and design reviews.

City officials said it was dropped because few in the community attended a public hearing on it. A disappointed Sol Blumenfeld, the former city planner who drafted the plan, said that the plan would have helped maintain what he called the special qualities of the neighborhood.

The disputes have given rise to groups representing different interests. The key group in promoting development on the street has been the Sawtelle Community Assn., which represents the street’s commercial property owners, many of whom are of Japanese descent.

The group was formed in the early 1980s and opposed Braude’s height-limit proposal. The association’s president, Naramura, whose family has run a real estate company since 1949, said that the group has plans to revitalize the community. The association “knew there was going to be development on the street, so I guess we wanted to make sure it was going to be something the community could be proud of,” he said.

But some have questioned whether the group represents the broader community. Braude said that the association represents developers and commercial property owners. And the newly formed Westside Residents Assn. has said in a letter to the Planning Commission that the association has “misrepresented the will of the community.”

The Citizens League’s Yamazaki said that the Sawtelle Community Assn. does not “reflect the general neighborhood. It represents the builders’ interests on Sawtelle.”

But Naramura said the group includes a diverse membership in addition to property owners.

Meanwhile, the development of Sawtelle continues.

On Sawtelle just north of Olympic, developer Yehuda Netanel is constructing a 36,000-square-foot office building and retail center where just a few months ago Harry S. Hankawa’s S & M Nursery stood. The new Sawtelle Place development has left no trace of the nursery that served the area’s gardeners for 38 years.

Hankawa, nearly 70, said that it was time for him to retire and he was offered a good price for his land. “My sons didn’t want to (continue the business) so I quit,” Hankawa said. “The Japanese third generation doesn’t want to do the dirty work. . . . Eventually I think all the Japanese are going out. In 5 to 10 years, Sawtelle will be all high-rise.”

New Life

Netanel bought the nursery for $2.9 million and said he is building quickly. Netanel, like other developers, said that he is bringing new life to the area.

“There haven’t been any distinctive Japanese-American architectural landmarks along Sawtelle Boulevard that were pointed out to me or were of special . . . cultural importance that I’m aware of,” Netanel said. “Sawtelle pretty much looks like any other street in West L.A.”

Many residents say they are resigned to the changes. “You can’t stop progress” was an often-repeated statement. Merchant Judy Owyang, who spearheaded a low-growth group in the early 1980s that is now defunct, said the street will be lined with buildings eventually. “Kiss it goodby,” she said, referring to Sawtelle.

Yamazaki, who still hopes to preserve the community, said that he supports a plan that would encourage the survival of neighborhood mom-and-pop stores. Some residents are trying to get a developer to build a Japanese community center.

But others said little can be done to mitigate the effects of the new developments. “It’s kind of hard to make a steel and glass and stone obelisk into a Japanese building,” said David Akazawa, 25, whose father runs the Narahara Gardens nursery. The still-plentiful nurseries are disappearing as land values increase.

As Akazawa spoke, customer Audrey Brown said she would miss the nurseries. “That’s just what this world needs, another office building. The (nursery owners) can’t hold out when they are offered a million dollars.”

Amid the new buildings, however, there are at least two nursery owners, in addition to the Yamaguchi store owners, who said they do not want to sell, although they have been approached often by real estate agents.

Shichiro Hashimoto, whose father started a nursery 60 years ago, was trimming bushes in the back of his nursery. At 82, Hashimoto said that he still likes the work. “I don’t want to sell. I have no place to go.”

George Yamaguchi, 72, who started his Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery in 1949, said that it doesn’t make sense to sell. “The money doesn’t mean much. What do you do with the money when you get old? The children can take care of themselves.”

Yamaguchi displayed a delicate pine tree that he said he has been tending for 26 years in a garden of exotic shrubs.

But the nursery owners acknowledged that eventually the nurseries will disappear because their children are not interested in taking over. “Many people offer money,” Hashimoto said. “I don’t want to sell. . . . The kids, after I quit, they might.”