Merchants Hope Architect Can Revive El Monte Mall

Old timers here still remember when folks came from all over the San Gabriel Valley to shop at what is now known as the Valley Mall, an eight-block strip of stores on Valley Boulevard in the heart of downtown.

They would buy clothes at the J. C. Penney store, amble across the street for a soda pop at the Thrifty Drug Store counter and then drive over to pick up groceries at McDaniel’s Market before heading home. El Monte’s retail district became the major shopping hub between Pasadena and Pomona.

But times have changed.

Large regional shopping centers have sprung up in nearby Arcadia, West Covina, Monrovia and, most recently, Montebello, luring more and more shoppers away and helping to drive the mall into decline.

Penney’s to Close

McDaniel’s Market is long gone. Penney’s, following a policy favoring regional shopping centers like the one in Montebello, will close early next month. And Thrifty plans to pull out of the mall in the spring. What remains is a hodgepodge of discount outlets and second-hand stores, graphic evidence of a stagnated downtown retail economy.

Earlier this year, in answer to pleas for help by merchants and property owners on the mall, the City Council awarded a $98,000 contract to the Arroyo Group, a Pasadena architectural firm, to develop a program to revitalize the mall and surrounding commercial and residential property.

“We’ve got to do something now,” said Dennis O’Brien, a property owner on the mall and proprietor of Sol’s Jewelry and Loan, who strongly favors the city’s action.

“We can offer good-quality merchandise, but we do need to change our image. If we don’t do anything, we’re going to go under. I want to protect my investment.”

O’Brien Confident

Although some critics argue that the city has done too little too late, O’Brien and other proponents of the program contend that it will attract better quality merchants and more customers.

The Arroyo Group, which guided the rehabilitation of Pasadena’s Old Town, recently unveiled a proposal for a wide range of private and public improvements to be phased in over the next three to five years. They include:

- Renovating existing buildings, adding new facades that, in many cases, will mark a return to their original architectural styles.

- Installing 1920s-style street lights.

- Establishing visual continuity with new signs, window awnings and a universal color scheme of tan, brown and blue.

- Creating a small park on the mall and filling in empty lots with new construction.

- Expanding and landscaping parking lots behind existing buildings and refurbishing rear entrances to the stores.

- Constructing new retail, commercial and residential developments adjacent to the mall.

Next month, the El Monte Community Redevelopment Agency will hold a formal hearing to consider approval of the proposal as part of the Valley Mall Redevelopment Area Project. Boundaries of the proposed project are roughly the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks on the north, the Rio Hondo Channel on the west, Ramona Boulevard on the east and the San Bernardino Freeway on the south.

Blend of Styles

Arroyo Group architect Larry B. Morrison said his company favors an approach that will blend the mall’s storefronts, currently a mix of styles from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, into a more attractive, coordinated look.

“We will mix the new with the old,” he said. “The buildings were done in a variety of styles--Art Deco, classical revival. We are not trying to impose a single architectural style.”

El Monte Planning Director Harold O. Johanson said the program initially would be voluntary, but noted that the city could later make it mandatory. Property owners will be required to pay for their own improvements, but the city will offer incentives in the form of 15-year loans at 6% interest, he said. The city will pay for public improvements.

Because the program is voluntary, Morrison said, it is impossible to project exact figures, but he estimated that private investment will run “tens of millions” of dollars. Public improvements will cost several million more, he said. About $350,000 has been allocated for public improvements to the mall this fiscal year and the city plans to channel part of its federal Community Development Block Grant funds to the program for several years.

Not All Agree

The Arroyo Group’s proposal has not met with universal acclaim.

Some businessmen favor total redevelopment of the area. They complain that the city has not been aggressive enough in seeking a new anchor store to replace Penney’s, which is the mall’s biggest draw. And they worry that the city has been so slow to take action that the mall is beyond saving. Although no exact figures were available, a city finance official estimated that sales growth has lagged behind inflation for more than a decade.

“The government should tear the damn place down,” said Bill Roumbos, part owner of the Golden Ox, a fast-food restaurant on the mall. “I don’t know how much he (O’Brien) spent, but . . . I don’t see much improvement. If they don’t do it right it will still be a slum. To me, you take an old building and no matter what you do, it’s still an old building.”

Bob Brown, a member of the El Monte-South El Monte Chamber of Commerce’s executive committee, said he doubts that the proposed program will attract better-quality stores, in part because El Monte’s largely blue-collar population lacks the spending power of more affluent areas. According to the Arroyo Group, in 1984 the median household income for El Monte was $18,438, compared to $24,137 for the county as a whole.

“As far as putting new fronts on stores,” Brown said, “it’s still a second-hand store when you walk inside. They think they’re going to raise rents, but you can’t raise rents because you’ve got the same clientele.”

Concerns Valid

The Arroyo Group’s Morrison and Johanson acknowledged that critics have valid concerns, but contended that a massive redevelopment program would be too expensive and would force out many existing businesses that would immediately be faced with huge rent increases.

“We want to do something more organic and gradual that will mix the new with the old,” Morrison said. “If there was a dramatic change, all the tenants would be gone and part of the idea (of revitalization) is to help existing tenants.

“This is a general conceptual plan. It doesn’t place any limits on what can be done. The city recognizes . . . that it is important to bring in major new anchors.”

Talks are under way with Marshall’s, a discount department store chain, Morrison said, adding that negotiations also are taking place with Bob’s Big Boy restaurants. Right now, the only food offered along the mall is the fare at two fast-food outlets and two Mexican seafood restaurants.

Food Barn Agreement

In addition, Morrison said, the city already has an agreement with a developer to put in a Food Barn, a discount supermarket chain operated by Safeway, at Valley and Ramona boulevards near the east end of the mall. And the city is trying to attract a new auto dealership on Valley just north of the mall.

Johanson said city and Arroyo Group staff members have met with property and business owners to discuss the plan and hear their views on it. So far, he said, the reception generally has been good.

“If the project goes as it is presented, I think it’ll turn things around,” said Richard Lopez, manager of the Red Wing Store on the mall and president of the 75-member Downtown El Monte Business Assn.

A prototype storefront facade already has been completed in O’Brien’s building, which contains five stores and offices, on the south side of the mall near Lexington Avenue. O’Brien said he spent about $30,000 on the prototype and expects to spend $150,000 to $200,000 to refurbish the entire building. Most of the rest of the block is owned by the Chamber of Commerce, which also plans to upgrade its property, chamber manager Dave Humphrey said.

Demonstration Block

Public improvements on that stretch are expected to start in about three months, said Johanson, adding that the block between Lexington and Monterey avenues will serve as a demonstration block that is expected to entice other property owners to participate in the program.

Juan Mireles, assistant planning director, said that he already sees some encouraging signs. For one thing, he said, the mall has few vacancies, largely because of low rents, which run in the 75-cent to $1-a-square-foot range. Even though rents will increase after improvements are made, the mall is likely to remain attractive to small businesses, which face considerably higher rents elsewhere in the valley, Mireles said.

O’Brien said he believes El Monte can support a strong middle- and low-end retail trade.

“We do supply a need,” he said. “Not everybody shops at Bullock’s.”

The city created the Valley Mall as a separate street in 1965 by rerouting Valley Boulevard to the north to divert through traffic between Santa Anita Avenue and Ramona Boulevard. More recently, property owners on the mall have urged the city to help revitalize the area, but redevelopment has been a sore issue in El Monte since 1979, when voters rejected a renewal program that encompassed a substantial portion of the city.