IMAGE CONSCIOUS : Beverly Hills Studies a Face Lift to Boost Its Business District

There comes a time when even the most beautiful people start thinking about face lifts. That time comes to cities, too. Beverly Hills, scene of countless plastic surgeries, is thinking about a face lift for its business district.

“Are we slipping? Not a bit,” declares Karl Shurz, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

“But to maintain our present position of total excellence we have to keep our guard up. That’s what, basically, the city is very concerned about. Maintaining the image.”

Aging or not, the fabled name of Beverly Hills still draws moneyed shoppers and tourists from as far away as Tokyo and Tobago to gaze at the shining storefronts of Rodeo Drive.

But the business folk, elected officials and city planners who worry about profits and tax revenues see other things: cracked sidewalks, traffic-clogged streets and four new or refurbished shopping mall rivals within easy driving distance.

“There was concern that we want to continue to give shoppers and visitors a reason to come to Beverly Hills,” said Robert C. Walsh, deputy city manager.

Cracked Sidewalks

Their conclusion was to commission a study, the results of which were announced last week.

“It’s a critical step forward in giving a face lift to a city which is in desperate need to maintain its beauty and attractiveness and keep its kind of garden-spot-of-the-world atmosphere,” said Mayor Robert K. Tanenbaum.

Instead of skin tucks, planners prescribed designer sidewalks, flower planters and old-fashioned street lamps as the first stage of a make-over of the 30 blocks that make up the city’s business district, sometimes called the Golden Triangle.

While the entire plan for revitalizing the city’s business district could cost as much as $80 million, the beautification scheme recommended last week could cost about $20 million in the first two years and about $1 million a year for maintenance.

The installation would include $2 million for flower planters, $715,000 for an irrigation system, $10.4 million for scored concrete sidewalks with granite bands, $3.3 million for street lamps, $1 million to widen sidewalks on Rodeo Drive and Brighton Way, $1.5 million for pedestrian gateways and another $1 million to landscape the middle of Wilshire Boulevard.

Accepting the report for further study, the City Council directed planners to come up with specific designs, a marketing program, proposals for actually putting the renovations in place and, most important, a finance plan.

Although the costs would be substantial, Walsh said that the payoff is just as important, with 60% to 70% of the city’s revenue coming from some kind of business activity.

Of that, as much as 80% comes directly from the Central Business District, he said. If those revenues fail to keep up with increasing costs, the city would be hard-pressed to maintain its high level of public services.

Proposed Financing

While financing is “totally speculative” at this point, Walsh said, one likely proposal would involve joint funding from the city’s coffers and from assessments on business tenants and property owners. The assessments could vary depending on location.

Using a typical 2,000-square-foot tenant as an example, Walsh said that with the business sector paying 50% of the program’s costs and the yearly assessment set at about one-tenth of 1% of sales, the annual payment would be about $590.

“Is this level of assessment affordable? In absolute dollar terms, it would appear that the above payment . . . is a nominal amount and seemingly affordable, even at the 100% level of contribution,” he said.

City planners also noted that tenants in shopping malls normally pay fees ranging as high as 6% of sales in addition to rent and taxes. The extra fee, known as a common area maintenance charge, goes to pay for costs similar to those proposed in the city’s urban design program.

“To remain competitive in the long-term future, Beverly Hills businesses must understand the mall or shopping district concept and adopt more of the tools available to its competitors,” Walsh said in a report to the City Council. “As they do, business district tenants (and property owners) will also need to accept a significant portion of the associated costs.”

The project could also be funded by bonds but “it remains to be seen how much of this is done when the price tag appears,” noted Don Tronstein, a Rodeo Drive property owner whom planners consulted on the proposal.

Whether the business community will go along with increased costs of doing business in Beverly Hills is far from clear.

“We applaud the city for coming out with a program; whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, we don’t know yet,” said Murray Fischer, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Seminars Planned

Although the chamber has yet to take a position on the proposals, Fischer said that a number of seminars would be offered in the coming months to acquaint business people and residents with the proposals.

“The figure the city is proposing, if accurate, is not astronomical,” he said.

But while it might seem reasonable to him, others might find the costs unaffordable.

“There are a lot of small merchants on Beverly Drive who are not going to be able to hack (it), because they don’t think it’s going to bring that much back to them, or anything at all,” said Charles Kornguth, owner of Beverly Hills Pipe & Tobacco Co., a shop on Beverly Drive.

“The existing malls have already hurt our business,” he said, adding that he is worried about a proposed expansion of Farmers Market in the Fairfax District just east of Beverly Hills.

“That might do it for Beverly Hills whether you have pretty sidewalks or not,” Kornguth said.