From Boom to Blight and Back Again? : Alhambra Hopes Redevelopment Will Bring Shoppers Back to Main Street

Ernestine May still remembers when downtown Alhambra was a shopping mecca in the San Gabriel Valley.

In the 1950s, Main Street was lined with boutiques and specialty shops, all anchored by popular department stores such as Liebergs, Butler Brothers, and J. C. Penney. On weekends, Main Street was jammed with shoppers.

“They used to have policemen at the corners,” recalled May, 65. “That’s how busy it was.”

But when May, who lives in Rosemead, returned to Alhambra one recent afternoon to window shop with a friend, Main Street looked deserted.

A victim of suburban shopping malls, Main Street nowadays is dotted with empty storefronts. Where McMahan’s furniture store once thrived, graffiti and peeling campaign posters cover boarded windows. J. C. Penney moved out of Alhambra about 3 years ago, and the Butler Brothers department store has been closed 15 years.

3 Blocks Targeted

“It’s depressing to come here now with all the empty stores,” said May’s friend Billie Gaynor, 62.

To breathe life back into the downtown shopping district, the Alhambra Redevelopment Agency in 1987 targeted three blocks on Main Street for redevelopment. Last week, the agency approved an exclusive negotiating agreement with Dicker-Warmington Properties, a Fullerton-based developer.

Under the negotiating agreement, Dicker-Warmington has 120 days to meet with agency staff and Main Street property owners and merchants, said Mike Martin, the agency’s deputy executive director. The parties are to decide details such as relocation and moving benefits.

The proposed project, a 40,000-square-foot upscale supermarket and a 60,000-square-foot retail center, with parking for about 400, is a scaled-back version of what the agency had been considering. Instead of redeveloping a 3-block area east of Garfield Avenue and north of Main Street, the project now focuses on a portion of one block between Chapel Avenue and Almansor Street. The block has been declared the most blighted of the downtown business section by the agency because four stores have remained vacant for an extended period.

“It was just too expensive to do the larger project,” Martin said.

Project Size Reduced

The original project would have cost the developer $26 million whereas the new one will cost only $14 to $16 million, he said. The size of the target area where the project would be located has been reduced from 566,000 square feet to 280,000 square feet.

“I think everybody is a little disappointed that the project cost is such that we have to downsize to one block,” said Martin. But he said the agency believes the project will be a success.

Preliminary plans call for the Redevelopment Agency to contribute up to $8.5 million toward the cost of land acquisition, relocation and demolition. The agency, which would then sell the land to the developer at $12 to $15 per square foot, must raise the money by selling bonds, said Martin.

The developer is to pay for the remaining cost of the project. If the agency does not receive a 5% return on its cash contribution within 20 years, the developer would pay the agency the difference, said Martin.

Once the project is completed, the agency would rebate sales and property taxes to Dicker-Warmington for the 10 or so years it would take to give the developer a 12% return on project costs. If the developer sells the project within 10 years, it will pay the agency 50% of any increase in the value of the land.

Most Blighted Area

By redeveloping the most blighted portion of Main Street, the city hopes to win back shoppers who abandoned downtown areas in favor of suburban malls that began sprouting in the late 1960s.

Malls such as Arcadia Fashion Park, Santa Anita Mall and the Glendale Galleria, with ample parking and anchor department stores such as The Broadway, Buffums, and Robinson’s, continue to drain Main Street of its customers.

Southern Californians’ love affair with their cars also has hurt downtown businesses, many of which lack parking lots and depend on a healthy dose of foot traffic.

Liebergs, a family-owned department store that has been in Alhambra since 1926, is one of the few businesses that has weathered changing times, thanks in part to a large parking lot it owns behind the store.

Without their own parking lots, Butler Brothers and Nahas department stores discovered that business quickly dried up. Nahas, located in the former Butler Brothers store, closed about 8 years ago and the site has been vacant ever since.

Nearly Invisible

Main Street businesses, with long interiors but narrow fronts, became almost invisible to motorists whizzing past, said Renuka Sharma, management assistant for the Redevelopment Agency.

On a recent weekday afternoon, a steady stream of cars jammed Main Street, but only a handful of pedestrians strolled along the sidewalks.

For businesses that have parking lots, such as Thrifty drugstore, the door facing Main Street has become the back door, because more customers enter from the lot. At 9 E. Main St., entrepreneurs have come and gone, opening everything from boutiques to flower shops. None has succeeded. The property changes hands once or twice a year, said Erlinda Lopez Romo, manager of the Alhambra Downtown Assn., a business assessment district. Last October, See’s Candies moved out of its earthquake-damaged building, adding to Main Street’s deserted look.

At least nine of about 34 stores on the north side of the 3-block area are vacant.

City officials, following a consultant’s recommendation, believe that the supermarket and retail center will attract residents from San Gabriel Valley cities such as South Pasadena and San Marino.

Market Surveys

“We think an upscale supermarket will do very well in Alhambra,” said Gerald Dicker, president of Dicker-Warmington. He said the conclusion is supported by market surveys conducted by his company.

The Redevelopment Agency’s plans for a scaled-back project means stores located in the two blocks west of Chapel Avenue will be spared from the wrecking ball. That was good news for store owners there, a number of whom said they remodeled in the last year.

Leon Tolley, owner of Prober’s Shoes, recently spent $400,000 to remodel his new store on Main Street, which he moved into after he was forced out of his old store across the street by another redevelopment project called Alhambra Place.

“I wouldn’t want to do it again,” said Tolley, 69. “I’m at the age now where another move would be horrendous.” If the city wants him to move again, officials would have “a tough fight on their hands,” he said.

Vendors’ Market

Five doors down, Michael Cheng and his wife, Janet, have invested time and money in the old Woolworth building, hoping to transform it into an upscale department store where sales space would be leased to vendors. The Chengs anticipate opening the store, De Beau Department Store Inc., by January or February.

The Chengs also hope to attract well-to-do shoppers from the San Gabriel Valley, especially Asians bound for Asian restaurants and shops on Alhambra’s Valley Boulevard and in neighboring Monterey Park, said Janet Cheng.

Although the number of businesses in Alhambra has soared from 2,000 to 3,500 in the last decade, a majority of the new concerns are concentrated on Valley, according to Dick Nichols, executive director of the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce.

Valley Boulevard, with its collection of Asian theaters, restaurants, bookstores and supermarkets, attracts Asian shoppers from as far away as Anaheim and Sun Valley, according to a study commissioned by Alhambra.

“It was just that Valley Boulevard was ready and available,” Nichols said.

Close to Monterey Park

Valley Boulevard also is close to Monterey Park, the original hub for Asian immigration and the businesses that followed. Less than a mile away from Monterey Park, Valley Boulevard became a natural location for Asian entrepreneurs, he said.

According to a study commissioned by the city, about 28% of those who shop on Main Street are of Asian heritage, compared to about 40% who shop on Valley Boulevard. About 30% of the city’s residents are Asian.

Nichols said that Valley’s gain has been Main Street’s loss, but not everyone sees Valley and Main as competitors, according to the study by Keyser Marston Associates Inc. of Los Angeles.

Most Asian businesses on Main Street believe that if they have competition, it is from the other businesses on Main Street, the study showed. Non-Asian businesses, by comparison, believe their primary competitors are major chain stores in regional shopping malls.

The Main Street stores that have survived the longest have focused on a speciality market or emphasized personalized service.

“In our stores, when you walk in, there’s a salesperson there that may know you by name, certainly knows your needs, and knows our merchandise,” said Jon Lieberg, great-grandson of the founder of Liebergs department store.

Change Paid Off

Earlier this year, Liebergs extended its evening hours to 7:30 to attract working women, and it has paid off, said Lieberg.

Located next to where Butler Brothers once stood and across the street from where McMahan’s furniture store used to be, the Liebergs store sits like an island in a sea of boarded and empty storefronts.

The store’s meticulous display windows herald purple and magenta fall fashions. Inside the modest 2-level store, there are no escalators, neon lights, or heavily made-up sales girls offering free perfume samples.

Instead, shoppers are treated to neat rows of tasteful but conservative ladies’ and men’s wear, lingerie, and accessories. It’s a store where sales clerks, many of them silver-haired women, do not look harried.

“We want to stay in Alhambra,” said Lieberg, 35. “We supported redevelopment all along. We want to be part of redevelopment.”

2 New Stores Planned

The family has another store in Temple City and plans to open two others, including one in Glendale, next year.

Alhambra Book Store, which has been on Main Street for 22 years, continues to do a booming business because it carries titles that competitors do not, said owner Mike Smith. Boasting 250,000 volumes, the store averages more than 400 customers a day, he said.

“Sometimes it’s all we can do to keep up,” said Smith. Smith has also tried to keep up with the times. Not long ago he opened a video-rental section in a corner of the store.

Like Smith’s bookstore, selection is also the key to success for Prober’s Shoes, which has been in business on Main Street for 52 years. The store carries men’s shoes in sizes 5-15 and women’s shoes in sizes 3-12, with an emphasis on shoes for older women.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere else to look for shoes,” said Faye Goodman, 85, a loyal customer from Temple City. “I have a size 11 and it’s about the only place anywhere where you can get one.”

Newer businesses that manage to do well on Main Street also focus on special market niches. For example, Pho 79, a Vietnamese restaurant that opened three years ago, offers a change from American and Chinese cuisine by adding a touch of Southeast Asian flavor to Alhambra’s restaurant scene.

City, Agency Criticized

Although downtown business owners agree that redevelopment is needed to pump business back into Main Street, they fault the city and Redevelopment Agency for delays.

Business owners complain that during the past 2 years the agency has been indecisive, changing developers and altering plans, so that merchants were left in limbo.

“It’s almost impossible to make any plans,” said Robert Desrochers, owner of four storefronts on Main Street.

In 1987, a redevelopment plan similar to the one approved by the agency last week fell through when the developer, Watkins-Garrison, was unable to complete relocation and acquisition terms with merchants and property owners.

“Watkins was impossible to deal with,” Smith said, adding that the developer wanted him to move out of his 17,000-square-foot store to one barely one-third the size. “It was their way or nothing.”

Martin said Watkins-Garrison’s proposals were fair.

“I don’t think the Watkins people were difficult to work with at all,” Martin said. “The project was difficult.

But because of bad feelings between Main Street merchants and Watkins-Garrison, the agency dropped the developer and selected Dicker-Warmington in August. Dicker-Warmington has developed retail centers in Industry, Rancho Cucamonga and Fullerton, among others.

Costly Delays

Merchants say delays have triggered additional vacancies, exacerbating Main Street’s ghost-town appearance.

Hemphill’s Shoes, for example, had sold its inventory in preparation for redevelopment when a revised Watkins-Garrison proposal fell through, said Romo of the Alhambra Downtown Assn. Without inventory, the store decided not to reopen and has remained vacant, she said.

A number of merchants also attribute delays to four of the five City Council members owning property near the redevelopment area, which would disqualify them from voting on Main Street development matters. City Council members also serve as the redevelopment board.

Agency rules require three affirmative votes to decide all issues. So council members Talmage Burke, Mary Louise Bunker, Michael Blanco and Barbara Messina drew straws, as allowed by state law, to decide who could cast the two additional votes.

Blanco and Messina were selected to join the fifth council member, in deciding Main Street development issues, said City Atty. Leland Dolley.

But the requirement for three affirmative votes can give any of the three veto power, said Dick Nichols of the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce. “Now, if one councilman doesn’t like it . . . it’s delayed,” he said.

With the approval of the exclusive negotiating agreement last week, the project is closer to reality than it has been in a long time. But if negotiations do not lead to a formal development agreement with Dicker-Warmington, the agency will have to start all over again.

But many merchants hope that the project will finally begin.

“I think it is good they are moving forward on it,” said Lee Lieberg. “We’re eager to talk to the developer and see what we can do.”