Once Seedy Downtown Carlsbad Is Now Trendy : Redevelopment Replaces Sleazy Bars, Hotels With Smart Shops, but Some See a Dark Side to Picture

It was a ghost town for retailers, pure and simple. But eight years ago, Ralph Copeland decided to take a chance on downtown Carlsbad.

For quite a spell, Copeland’s cozy Grand Avenue shop specializing in gifts and collectibles attracted a mere trickle of customers.

And no wonder. In those days, few locals bothered to venture downtown, a landscape dominated by drab storefronts and sprinkled with seedy bars and dilapidated flophouses.

“After we opened, it was frightful sitting all day long and having no one come in,” Copeland recalled one recent afternoon. “But it’s paid off in the long run.”

Indeed, downtown Carlsbad has enjoyed a renaissance. Gone are the sleazy saloons and low-budget motels, replaced by trendy boutiques and restaurants boasting freshly painted facades and bright-colored awnings.

The retail vacancy rate, which soared as high as 60% during the 1970s, has plummeted to less than 2%, while an appealing combination of lush landscaping and red-brick crosswalks have given the commercial sector a decidedly upscale look.

Downtown’s savior, as city officials and many merchants view it, is redevelopment. Carlsbad’s five-year-old urban renewal program has helped turn downtown, dubbed “the village” by residents, into a stable retail market enticing to tourists and local shoppers alike.

Aside from the pleasing ambiance that is fast being created in the downtown redevelopment area, a 300-acre region stretching south from Buena Vista Lagoon between the Pacific Ocean and Interstate 5 in Carlsbad’s northwest corner, city leaders point to statistics as proof that the civic revitalization effort is paying off.

Since redevelopment was launched in 1981, the village’s assessed value has jumped from $12 million to about $71 million, officials say. Tax revenue generated by hotels in the area has risen from $51,000 in fiscal 1980-81 to $219,000 in 1985-86.

There has been about $100 million worth of new office and retail construction during the last three years, they say. Property values have tripled since 1980. Most importantly for redevelopment officials, the taxes that go to fund civic renewal projects have mushroomed from $30,000 during the program’s first year to more than $3 million in 1986.

“We’ve made tremendous strides,” said Chris Salomone, Carlsbad’s redevelopment manager. “All the indicators of turning an area around are right where they should be.”

Despite the progress, some merchants warn that the village’s prosperity may be only skin deep.

While increasing pedestrian and vehicular traffic has brought a welcome stream of new patrons to the area, some critics fear that skyrocketing rents will ultimately drive many businesses out of town. Just a few years ago, some businesses enjoyed rents as low as 20 cents a square foot, but today most new landlords are demanding $1.25 and up.

“I thought this place was going to turn into a boom town, but it’s been pretty much a dud,” said Gene Clark, who owns a State Street shop specializing in imported goods. “Around here we’ve seen rents rising through the roof but the pedestrian traffic hasn’t increased enough to warrant that. Things are just not panning out the way we had hoped.”

Some merchants also point to a shortage of parking spaces as a key problem. Still others say the village has failed to develop the sort of entertainment facilities and other enticements that lure customers after hours and on the weekends.

City officials acknowledge that such problems exist but insist that steps are being taken to remedy them. Moreover, even the most cynical of skeptics concede that the downtown Carlsbad of the ‘80s is far healthier than a decade ago.

“A few years ago, downtown Carlsbad looked like the set from the movie ‘The Last Picture Show,’ ” said Stephen Densham, an owner of two popular downtown restaurants and co-chairman of the Village Merchants Assn. “All the buildings were poorly maintained, 1930s- and ‘40s-era architecture.

“But today, redevelopment in its purest form is working here in Carlsbad. It’s evidenced not only in the general feel, but in terms of the dollars that are being generated.”

City officials say downtown’s retail demise began several decades ago, when the construction of Interstate 5 in the 1950s shifted traffic patterns away from the village. Suddenly shoppers were no longer routinely driving through the area on their way between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Completion of the massive Plaza Camino Real shopping mall a mile east of the village in 1969 further eroded downtown’s strength as a retail center. Patrons who once did their shopping in downtown Carlsbad began frequenting the mall. And the recession of the late 1970s and early ‘80s only made a bad situation worse.

Faced then with a dying downtown, city officials began pondering ways to revive the village. But for several years, all municipal leaders did was talk. For more than a decade, city leaders discussed establishing a redevelopment agency and attacking the downtown problems head-on.

The debate finally ended in 1981 when the redevelopment program was launched. Soon afterward, Salomone was hired. His first order of business was to gain the trust of downtown merchants. During the hard times, many business owners had grown dubious of the city’s interest in the village.

“Some of the smallest things we did had the biggest impact,” Salomone said, noting how the agency in an early move closed down three disreputable bars while beginning several street-side beautification projects and purchasing land for a 300-space parking lot.

The city began offering low-interest loans to businesses and landlords eager to fix up their property. About $1 million has been loaned so far to two dozen businesses, Salomone said.

Hoping to reacquaint local residents with the village, the city also sponsored several community events, among them a popular crafts fair, a 5-kilometer run and a Grand Prix bicycle race.

And once merchants saw the city was putting its money behind all the talk, Salomone said, the private sector began to kick into gear.

Landowners completed facade work that improved the appearance of their buildings. Along the seaboard, a handful of hotels were renovated or built and new shops were constructed, catering both to tourists and the local trade. Nearly 200 time-share condominium units were also built.

Meanwhile, three upscale restaurants opened their doors, drawing a steady crowd to an area that previously had lacked top-notch eateries. A half-dozen office buildings were erected or renovated.

“The private sector just sort of responded to our efforts,” Salomone said, noting that the agency has strictly avoided condemning property or subsidizing projects, a typical practice in other civic revitalization efforts. “It’s the classic redevelopment effect, the sort of spin-off that can happen.”

Councilwoman Ann Kulchin, a staunch supporter of the redevelopment effort, agreed.

“We didn’t just raze downtown the way some of the other cities did,” Kulchin said. “We developed a partnership between the village merchants and the redevelopment agency. And we’re doing it slowly and very carefully and with a lot of thought.”

Nonetheless, Salomone admits, the renewal effort has a bevy of problems yet to tackle, chief among them parking. Plans for adding additional off-street parking or a parking structure are in the formative stages, he said.

Redevelopment officials also hold high hopes for renovation work being done on the downtown’s lone theater, a 500-seat complex that in recent years had presented strictly Spanish-language movies. An investor has bought the property and proposed offering a varied menu of live theater, concerts and classic movies, the type of activity city leaders hope will bring increasing numbers of residents to the village after normal business hours.

Another major project on the horizon calls for $2.5 million in street landscaping along Elm Avenue, entryway to the heart of the village from Interstate 5. On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to select a firm to design the project, which will include construction of a new landscaped median, installation of brick sidewalks, new street furniture and possibly a public sculpture.

On the western edge of the village, Densham and other investors have proposed a commercial shopping complex--similar to Seaport Village in downtown San Diego or the Lumberyard in Encinitas--on four acres of property behind Neimans restaurant at the Twin Inns. Salomone said such a development would help dramatically to draw beachfront visitors toward downtown.

Despite the tangible strides forward, some merchants worry that the village may never reach the pinnacle city officials envision. Moreover, the problems of today--relatively high rents and a dearth of parking--make downtown Carlsbad a tough place to do business, they say.

“I just don’t think it will do what they think it will,” said the owner of a popular deli, who asked that his name not be used. “Know how many businesses we’ve seen come and go around here? We’ve been here four years and I think we’re the vets on the block now.”

On State Street, the commercial core of area, some merchants grouse that the area has become a virtual revolving door for businesses.

Elizabeth Szymanski, for instance, opened her high-fashion women’s clothing outlet, Natushka, just four months ago in a newly renovated building on the corner of State Street and Elm Avenue. Now she’s going out of business.

“It was my dream, my store,” said Szymanski, a native of Poland. “And it doesn’t work. Carlsbad is not ready for expensive and different clothes.”

Even merchants who are high on the city’s redevelopment efforts warn that care must be taken to ensure that downtown Carlsbad remains a viable marketplace for residents rather than a cluster of businesses catering mostly to the seasonal tourist trade.

“A lot of towns want to become a town for tourists,” said Marlene Goldberg, owner of Quo Vadis, a travel supply shop. “I think the village first and foremost needs to be for the residents of Carlsbad.”

Other merchants are unabashedly optimistic about the village’s future.

One recent sunny afternoon, Heather Tom sat in a wicker chair outside the Hawaiian-style clothing store she opened late last year and mused about the bright road she sees ahead.

“A couple of years ago, the buildings around here would be up for sale and people wouldn’t even touch them,” she said. “We wanted to open a shop in Carlsbad for about five years but we waited until the area turned around. Now we have real high hopes for the area.

“Besides,” said the 35-year-old merchant, “I want to retire here and be a little old lady selling T-shirts.”