Culver City Officials Want to Give Aging Storefronts a Pastel Face-Lift

Culver City officials want to modernize a 4-block stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard near the Fox Hills Mall by encouraging property owners to renovate storefronts designed in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

The Culver City Council has reaffirmed an earlier decision directing staff to draft guidelines for the storefront improvements and find money to help property owners in the targeted area pay for them, according to Phyllis Baboolal of the city Housing Programs Office, which will administer the project.

The city, which has a similar project directed at single-family homes, will try to rehabilitate commercial buildings for the first time in a stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard bounded by Jefferson Boulevard-Playa Street and Sawtelle Boulevard, Baboolal said.

The revitalization program follows last year’s repaving and widening of the boulevard and will encourage businesses to use more pastel tones, planters and smaller signs to give the street more uniformity.

“If you’re going to make the street and the streetscape nice, it would follow that the facade improvement will be next,” she said.

Baboolal said most property and business owners she has talked to favor the program.

Karen Dolce, owner of Dolce & Associates Realtors, said she wished the renovations could start tomorrow.

“I think we look old and kind of dilapidated,” said Dolce, whose office was started by her father-in-law nearly 20 years ago. “It would be a plus to have the outside of the building look as good as the inside. It’s a matter of pride.”

Tony Tangari, who owns the picture-framing business next door, expressed similar sentiments.

“I want it done, the sooner the better,” he said. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long.”

But Tangari warned that the city would have to help the businesses finance the improvements.

“If we have no help, we won’t be able to do it,” he said. “We pay (business license fees and taxes) all the time. I think the city has to give a little something back to us.”

Baboolal said the program will be modeled after the city’s Neighborhood Preservations Program.