Long Beach Weighs Taking on Signal Hill in Battle to Build Auto Malls
In the good old days, Long Beach Boulevard was the place to go to kick a few tires, check under some hoods and drive away in a shiny new car. But these days, “Auto Row” is dying.
Surrounded by deteriorated neighborhoods and a high crime rate, dealers on Long Beach Boulevard in the City of Long Beach are looking to get out. For the past two years, about half-a-dozen car dealers have been talking with Signal Hill about a proposed auto mall there, but now, the two neighboring cities may be competing as Long Beach officials consider creating an auto mall in their city.
While Long Beach ponders entering the race, Signal Hill plunges ahead with its project. This week, the Signal Hill City Council approved hiring a consultant to oversee the design of a mall and clinch agreements with dealers.
“We’re a lot further along than the City of Long Beach,” Signal Hill Mayor Richard Ceccia said. “We’ll be selling cars long before the City of Long Beach. They’re at step one.”
This week, a city task force urged the Long Beach City Council to get moving “immediately” on creating an auto mall for at least 10 dealerships. The loss of the dealers and the $2.8 million in sales taxes they collect “would be a disastrous blow to our city,” said Thomas D. Formica, chairman of the task force on retail sales and auto sales.
Face Playing Catch-Up
“We’re going to play catch-up with our neighbors. There’s no question about that,” Formica acknowledged.
If Long Beach proceeds with the recommendation to build an auto mall, car dealers could be in a cushy spot if the cities compete and start a bidding war. But to the dealers, timeliness is of the essence.
“We would rather stay in Long Beach. I’ve been here for 32 years, but we have to evaluate it,” said Mike Salta, a member of the task force and a dealer for Pontiac, AMC and Mitsubishi. “Timeliness is very important.”
Bob Autrey, who owns a Mazda dealership on the row, put it more bluntly: “It would make no difference to me: Long Beach or Signal Hill or Lakewood--as long as it was close to the freeway.”
Both Autrey and Salta have talked with Signal Hill about moving there, but neither wants to say where those negotiations stand.
Signal Hill officials also declined to say which dealerships would move to their new mall. In the Long Beach task force report, seven dealerships--on Long Beach Boulevard and elsewhere in the city--were identified as those that would benefit from being in a mall: Long Beach BMW; Bob Autrey Mazda; Boulevard Buick, GMC, Lincoln-Mercury, Merkur, Saab, Jaguar; M.F. Salta Pontiac, AMC, Mitsubishi; Glenn E. Thomas Dodge; Long Beach Honda, and Palmer Motors.
One thing is certain, Autrey said, once the Los Angeles-to-Long Beach light rail line is built along Long Beach Boulevard, he will leave.
Opposes Rail System
The light rail system is “going to wipe out Long Beach Boulevard. It will kill any retail centers existing. When that happens, I’ll be out of there with or without a mall. That’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever done,” Autrey said.
The commuter rail line--construction on the boulevard is scheduled to start early next year-- was the final blow to the dealers, who have long bemoaned the changes in their area.
Since the 1950s, the neighborhoods around Long Beach Boulevard have deteriorated, crime has increased, larger markets abandoned the area and many of the dealers have fled. Cut off from the freeways and greater visibility, the dealers who stayed on lost customers to the newly developed auto malls in surrounding communities.
“We’re in a heavy crime area. We’re in a run-down area. People just don’t shop in an area like that after dark,” Salta said.
Autrey, describing the area as a “war zone,” said he would like to move “as soon as possible.”
Where the dealers go represents high stakes for the city. If the dealers who are ready to leave the boulevard stay within the city boundaries, the city will continue to receive about $1.4 million in sales tax revenue and another $1.4 million from repair and auto parts--the spinoff of dealerships.
“Overall, the loss of these dealerships expressed in 1987 dollars would result in a loss to the local economy of over $200 million in direct income, $200 million in indirect income, 350 jobs, $2.8 million in sales tax revenues, and approximately $120,000 in property taxes,” the task force report said.
“This loss would seriously jeopardize the continued provision of services to the citizens of Long Beach,” the report concluded.
According to the task force, an auto mall with about 10 dealerships would bring in approximately $8.4 million in sales taxes per year to the city. Long Beach is expected to receive $25.6 million in sales taxes during the 1987-88 fiscal year.
Signal Hill estimates its auto mall--with seven to nine dealers--could bring an additional $1.5 million in sales tax revenue. The 2.2-acre city heavily relies on its sales tax money; the $4 million projected for next year in sales taxes would be almost half of the city’s annual budget.
For the 20-plus acre mall at Cherry Avenue and Spring Street, Signal Hill has thus far acquired one 2 1/2-acre property and a one-sixth-acre parcel. Two four-acre parcels are in escrow and another five parcels totaling nine acres are under negotiation, according to Ceil Cirillo, the city’s redevelopment project manager.
Stumbling Block
The biggest stumbling block to the proposed auto mall in the small oil city has been the discovery of hazardous waste in the soil. As a result the city discarded from its plan the parcels most heavily contaminated by old oil wells, officials said. But the remaining parcels--while not as heavily tainted--still pose a problem, Cirillo said.
The city hired a Santa Ana firm to analyze the soil. Earlier this month, officials contracted with the same company to develop a cleanup proposal Signal Hill can present to the State Department of Health Services. The firm, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, is expected to report within the next eight weeks, Cirillo said.
Total cost of the cleanup is estimated at $1.5 million. City officials are looking to the property owners to pay for their own cleanup before selling to the city.
With an environmental review expected to be completed within the next week, Cirillo said she expects the city to purchase the various properties and begin public hearings on the state-mandated environmental study by next January. If there are no other delays, Signal Hill will have an auto mall by the middle of next year, Cirillo said.
Meanwhile, in Long Beach, the council Tuesday forwarded the task force’s report to City Manager James C. Hankla, who expects to return within three weeks with a response to the auto mall recommendation.
The task force recommended a spot for an auto mall that is within blocks of the proposed Signal Hill auto mall: the area around Spring Street and Orange Avenue, with two other sites as alternatives: the Los Altos Drive-In and an area near the intersection of Temple and Willow avenues.
Oil Well Area
The Spring and Orange site has a few active oil wells and once was home to many more. Assistant City Manager John Shirey said officials “realized from the outset that we could run into the same problems” of contaminated soils.
“We’ll have to do a lot more work on that,” said Shirey, who estimated construction of a Long Beach auto mall could begin within a year “if everything goes right.”
“We don’t mess around,” Shirey said.
Shirey said eminent domain--the city’s power to condemn and take over private property--will be considered if property owners are reluctant to sell. In Signal Hill, officials have avoided using the condemnation procedure thus far and council members have expressed reluctance to use it because of the bad feelings it could create within the community, particularly with property owners.
In the report, the task force said there should be cooperation between Long Beach and Signal Hill if Long Beach would benefit by having the two malls close to each other.
Shirey said the city is not bound to any of the task force’s recommendations--or its stipulations--and said an arrangement could be worked out with Signal Hill.
Mayor Ceccia said his city is not about to wait for Long Beach to get rolling on its proposal.
“Why should we wait two years?” Ceccia asked, estimating that is how long he thinks it might take Long Beach to tackle soil analysis, environmental reviews, land acquisitions and other facets of the project.
Like auto dealers and officials in both cities, Signal Hill City Manager Robert Williams said, “I think that we’re very much aware that time is of the essence.”
The interest from auto dealers, Cirillo explained, is contingent upon the question: “Do you have a project ready to go?”
Ceccia said, “The dealers are businessmen. They are not going to care what Long Beach wants to do when they can do it (move to a mall) right away. If we do it before the City of Long Beach, they’ll jump at the chance of going someplace else.”
