Plans Sprout to Help Boulevard Recapture Faded Bloom : Bellflower Uses Hometown Touch to Compete With Malls

The old woman strolled along Bellflower Boulevard, stopping occasionally to browse in shop windows and to cool off in the shade of storefront awnings.

She walked along a nearly empty sidewalk past a string of antique shops before pausing in front of a display window. After glancing at a discarded hanger lying next to a mannequin, she shook her head and kept walking.

“It’s kind of eerie,” she said. “This place used to be so crowded with people and cars, you could barely make it down the street. On Friday and Saturday nights traffic was bumper to bumper.”

Bellflower Boulevard is still crowded with cars, but now motorists seem to be driving past the downtown strip on their way to and from the Artesia Freeway. And if empty parking spaces are any indication, most motorists are not stopping to shop.

Reminders of Another Era

Compared to stores in the modern, air-conditioned malls of nearby Lakewood and Cerritos, stores along Bellflower’s 1.5-mile downtown strip seem like aging remnants from another era.

Fifties-style neon signs still hang on storefronts that are as varied as the goods sold inside. Thrift stores, antique shops, clothing stores, small diners, toy and hobby shops seem to center around the most visible building on the boulevard--a former movie theater that now houses Hosanna Chapel, a nondenominational church.

But many downtown merchants remember when Bellflower Boulevard was once teeming with shoppers and young people cruising the street. In the 1940s, downtown Bellflower was known as the commercial hub of the Southeast area and the city’s economic lifeline.

“Years back people came from all over to do their shopping in Bellflower,” said Louise Dalton, who has worked on Bellflower Boulevard for 35 years and owns Kay’s Beauty Salon. “You can’t imagine what a terrific place this was to shop.”

As more office buildings and fewer retail stores move into the area, city officials say there is little chance that downtown Bellflower will ever again be the bustling center it once was.

“A lot of city councils in the past have tried to revitalize the downtown area but they haven’t succeeded because of the proximity of the malls,” said Mayor Joseph Cvetko. “Our glory days are over. It will never be the downtown it was in the ‘40s.”

But David Ryal, manager of the Bellflower Chamber of Commerce, sees a different future for downtown Bellflower.

Bellflower has a lot going for it,” said Ryal, who became chamber manager in October, 1985. “It’s the hometown atmosphere that makes Bellflower unique . . . but the city has to realize that we’re in the ‘80s now and things have to progress.”

This fall Ryal and the chamber will launch a yearlong campaign to revitalize Bellflower’s business district.

Distributing First Newspaper

In November the chamber will publish its first newspaper, Ryal said. It will be mailed to the chamber’s members in Bellflower, Cerritos, Paramount, Norwalk, Downey, Lakewood, and other surrounding cities.

He also plans to set up a SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives) program. SCORE is a volunteer group of retired professionals that advise small businesses.

Other projects include a series of business workshops co-sponsored by the chamber and Cerritos College that will start in the spring.

Ryal said he also wants to work with the city to establish a referral service next summer for people interested in opening businesses in Bellflower.

“I’d like to put together a list of available business properties, the size of each property, the amount of parking available, the cost of the property and a contact person to call to make it easier for new business people who want to set up shop here,” Ryal said. “I don’t think the city will fall apart without new businesses, but I also don’t see the city growing unless we can get more revenue-generating businesses to come in. “

Carol Moffett, chamber president and co-owner of Moffett’s Chicken Pies in the city, says she is enthusiastic about Ryal’s approach.

“We really need younger blood and fresh ideas in this chamber,” Moffett said. “Thirty years ago the attitude among merchants might have been ‘What’s good enough for Pa is good enough for me,’ but I don’t think that washes anymore. You have to take a chance.”

The 6.1-square mile city, bordered by Lakewood to the south, Downey to the north, Paramount to the west, and Norwalk and Cerritos to the east, does not exactly have a history of taking chances.

In 1954, while surrounding cities incorporated one by one, Bellflower residents overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to incorporate. The move was spurred by the Committee Against Incorporation, headed by a local businessman.

“You know how it goes--stories got out, rumors got started, some people thought we would have city taxes,” said Muriel F. MacGregor, president of the Bellflower Historical Society. “The bottom line is--people just don’t like changes.”

Only after the state Legislature passed a law in 1956 allowing 1% of the sales tax to go to incorporated cities, did the town incorporate.

Almost 30 years later, history seemed to repeat itself when city officials introduced a redevelopment plan that was ultimately abandoned after being met with overwhelming public opposition.

With nearby cities like Cerritos relying heavily on redevelopment to boost their economies, Bellflower residents bucked the trend and approved a 1983 ordinance prohibiting any redevelopment unless it is approved in a citywide vote. As a result, redevelopment has not come to Bellflower.

2 Cities of Contrast

A comparison with Cerritos is striking. The two cities were incorporated the same year. At the time, Bellflower had about 50,000 residents, and Cerritos had just 3,500. Today, Bellflower has about 54,000 people; Cerritos has 56,000. Bellflower has a $15-million operating budget and generates about $3.5 million in annual sales tax revenue, according to Julie North, assistant finance director. Cerritos, which opened its mall in 1970, has a $51.8-million budget and receives about $12 million in annual sales tax revenue.

Like the controversy surrounding incorporation, some Bellflower officials say the changes redevelopment would have brought was frightening to residents.

“The whole thing was a fiasco,” said former Mayor Lee Walker. “I just don’t think it was presented to the people the right way. . . . There were too many people who wanted to see Bellflower stay the way it was.”

Several downtown merchants, like Al Schwab, who has owned Bobbie Lynn’s clothing store for more than 30 years, said that the city’s anti-redevelopment stance hurt the downtown area.

“The council opposing redevelopment held the city back more than anything else that has ever happened in this city,” Schwab said. “I think it could have been a good thing for us. When Lakewood Center opened, it definitely hurt our business. Redevelopment could have brought more dress shops and shoe stores around, which would have brought more shoppers.

Gimmicks to Lure Shoppers

Still, city officials have tried several gimmicks to bring more shoppers downtown.

Last March, for instance, the city opened a downtown farmers market in hopes of attracting more shoppers to the boulevard. The farmers market is an outdoor produce market where shoppers can buy fresh fruit and vegetables every Monday morning at wholesale prices.

According to Sung Oh, owner of the Hungry Tummy restaurant at Laurel Street and Bellflower Boulevard, the market has definitely helped business.

“This place is packed on Mondays,” said Oh, who bought the tiny diner four years ago. “The rest of the week is OK, but Monday is out of this world.”

But while city officials grapple with the problem of boosting existing businesses, they are faced with the more complex problem of drawing new business into a city with very few parcels of developable commercial land. And without a redevelopment agency, city officials must rely on private developers’ interest to boost sales tax revenue.

Certain Uses Restricted

In the past four months city officials, concerned over how commercial sites are being used, passed moratoriums on thrift stores and small warehouses in order to study better uses for the sites.

“We really have no room to grow and that’s a problem,” said Lee Whitenberg, planning director. “The concern was over what kind of businesses would want to relocate next to a thrift store, which is not a big revenue generating business. A mini-warehouse facility doesn’t generate much revenue, it just takes up a lot of space.”

It was the moratorium on the small warehouses that sparked a controversy over a $15-million industrial park proposed by Downey developer George Holiday. The City Council passed the moratorium in June after Holiday initially proposed a mini-warehouse for the former Triangle Grain Co. site on Artesia Place. The city has asked Holiday to sign a document stating that he promises not to use the site as a mini-warehouse. Holiday refused to sign the document. Until the city and Holiday reach an agreement, the project remains on hold.

There also plans for a 10-acre retail center at Artesia Boulevard and Downey Avenue, on the last large parcel of developable land in the city, according to Whitenberg. He added that negotiations between the city and developers over the sale of the property are pending.

On the corner of Bellflower and Artesia boulevards a deserted Builders Emporium stands as a ghostly gateway to the downtown strip. Officials of Wickes Companies Inc., which owns Builders Emporium, say the building may be converted into a Wickes Furniture Showroom within the next few months.

The city suffered an economic blow in 1984 when it lost three major auto dealers--the city’s major sources of sales tax revenue--to the Cerritos Auto Square and to Lakewood.

But Mike Sakamoto, assistant city administrator, says the loss was buffered by increased sales tax revenue from K mart, which moved to the city in 1969; Gemco, which arrived in 1974, and Pete Ellis Ford, which moved here last year. Each business generates an estimated $200,000 annually, making them the city’s top sales tax revenue producers, Sakamoto said.

City Spends Less

“There is nothing mystical about how we manage to survive,” Sakamoto said. “We have half the employees of most cities, we have a broad base of sales tax and we simply don’t spend as much as other cities do. Losing those auto dealers hurt us, but we are doing fine.”

While the chamber and the city are eager to draw new business, many longtime shop owners like Bob Hill, owner of Hill’s Western Wear, said he is not worried about the economic future of his business.

“We have been here since 1946 and business is still good,” said Hill. “Most of the other business people on the boulevard have been here that long and they are still doing fine. It would be great to attract new business but I think that as long as we give customers something they can’t get in the malls--personal service--downtown Bellflower will be here for a long time.”

Many of the family-run businesses, like Hill’s, Bobbie Lynn, Gumms Shoe Emporium and Thompson’s Furniture Store, opened shop in Bellflower in the early 1920s, creating a tightly knit group of downtown merchants. Hill, 43, whose father Neil started the business, has worked at the store with his brothers and sisters since he was 11. Down the street Thompson’s Furniture Store was the first store in Bellflower when it opened in 1910 as a general store and post office. Claire S. Thompson started the business and passed it down to his son Claire S. Thompson Jr. during the Depression and, in 1978, Claire Jr. passed it down to his son, John Thompson, who now runs the store.

At the Hungry Tummy, Sung Oh, a relative newcomer to the city, says it was this small-town atmosphere that attracted her to Bellflower.

“We are like family here,” said Oh, whose diner occupies a sliver of space in the corner of Hosanna Chapel. “After just a few months, regular customers started coming in like clockwork. I don’t think you’ll see that in other cities. I like Bellflower the way it is--homey.”