Saving a Street : Gardena’s New Beautification Project Aims to Spruce Up Once-Thriving Boulevard

For Norm Habash, the first inkling that business was slowing down at his Gardena Boulevard store came in 1981, two years after he opened Norm’s Bicycle Shop.

It was then that the local Bank of America branch closed, to be consolidated with a branch on Redondo Beach Boulevard. A few years later, the Harbor Freeway’s Alondra Boulevard off-ramp, four blocks north of the old downtown district along Gardena Boulevard, was closed. It was replaced by an exit at Redondo Beach Boulevard farther north.

Luring Customers

Soon afterward, Redondo Beach Boulevard took off, with major banks, hotels, shopping centers and fast-food restaurants all luring customers from the stream of motorists on their way to the freeway. The once-steady stream of customers that had made Gardena Boulevard the city’s major commercial street slowed to a trickle, merchants say.

“When I opened 10 years ago, business was fantastic,” the Palestine-born Habash said. “Now I’m not making a living here. As soon as the bank closed, businesses started closing. . . . For business, it’s a dead location. After 4 p.m., you don’t see anybody on the streets.”

Habash, who pays $400 a month to lease his shop, said he sometimes makes only $30 or $40 a day and is forced to work weekends at swap meets to cover the shop’s expenses.

Other Gardena Boulevard merchants said their businesses are profitable, but many said the thoroughfare attracts few customers and it could use sprucing up.

In an effort to resuscitate Gardena Boulevard, city officials in December started the first phase of a beautification plan under which the city will pay for 60% of the cost of renovating storefronts, up to $6,000, said grants administrator Gail Doi.

The money comes from a $180,000 federal Community Development Block Grant, administered by state officials, Doi said. So far, six of the 120 businesses located between Vermont and Normandie avenues have applied for assistance from the fund, she said.

The city has also hired the Los Angeles-based architectural firm of Tetra Design to provide an overall look for the street renovation, including brick sidewalks, pedestrian crosswalks, new street lights, trees and other landscaping, Doi said.

“Gardena Boulevard was developed some in the early part of the century, and a good amount in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s,” Doi said. “There’s been a lot of make-over renovations to some of the buildings, so what we have is a kind of mixed theme on the boulevard, with no particular theme. The design guidelines are meant to clean that up, to add some charm, appeal and nostalgia.”

Business owners who apply for funding to renovate their storefronts must follow the city’s design guidelines, City Manager Kenneth Landau said.

“The goal is to have property owners try to improve the upkeep of their building,” Landau said. “The city is trying to give them matching funds, and in return they’ll go along with the city’s design guidelines so they’ll have a uniform look.”

Family Businesses

Traditionally, Gardena Boulevard has been home to family-owned businesses, small supermarkets, furniture stores, shoe stores, real estate agents and a pharmacy. Landau said the city wants to retain that small-town flavor by developing a “Main Street, USA” thoroughfare of service-oriented business that will attract pedestrian customers.

Major retailers are more attracted to Redondo Beach Boulevard and Artesia Boulevard, so the city is seeking to lure small markets, gift shops, shoe and jewelry repair stores and other specialty services and shops, places people would want to browse.

Rick Giuliano, manager of Giuliano’s Delicatessen and Bakery, said that Gardena Boulevard needs an infusion of new business and that a spiffed-up appearance could help.

“I think they could make the place look nicer,” said Giuliano, whose family founded the delicatessen 37 years ago, the first of what has become an 11-store chain.

Although customers are scarce for some Gardena Boulevard merchants such as Habash, others, such as Giuliano and Oscar Medrano Jr. manager of Osmar Jewelry, said profits have risen.

“It’s been increasing every year,” Medrano said. “We’ve considered moving, but business is too good. We know the people, we feel comfortable. . . . We don’t want to make a million dollars.”

Rather than applying for funds from the city or waiting for building owners to make repairs and improvements, the Medranos and other merchants who lease their business spaces said they have spent their own money to paint, landscape and make other renovations.

Most business owners on Gardena Boulevard lease their space and are thus reluctant to make expensive improvements to buildings they do not own, even with the city’s financial help, said Chip Mamiya, chairman of the nonprofit Gardena Valley Economic Development Corp. and a Gardena Boulevard mortgage broker.

Because some owners make improvements and others don’t, the street’s appearance has become eclectic, officials said.

Uniform Look

Bringing a uniform look--and uniform profits--to the street’s merchants is part of the city’s goal, said Landau. The city is looking at successful downtown revitalization in Whittier and Monrovia as role models, he said.

One of Gardena Boulevard’s problems, merchants said, is that the street is sandwiched between two high-profile, well-traveled commercial streets, Redondo Beach Boulevard and Artesia Boulevard. Artesia leads directly into the city as a continuation of the Artesia Freeway and is the site of the $20-million Gateway Plaza shopping center under construction near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and the boulevard.

Steve Ariga, a sales manager at the Travel Be travel agency on Gardena Boulevard, said location is a problem for some of the street’s customers but not for Travel Be, because most of its business is done by telephone.

Otherwise, Ariga said: “I don’t think there’s a reason for people to come here. We’re not in competition with anybody. There’s really no traffic here at all.”

Nicolas Garcia, owner of Nicolas Furniture, said limited parking may keep some customers from stopping to browse.

‘In a Hurry’

“Many people probably don’t stop because they’re in a hurry and don’t see a place to stop,” said Garcia, who opened his store last July. “Then they say, ‘I’ll just go to the mall.’ ”

Another problem is that Gardena Boulevard extends into the Harbor Gateway east of Vermont Avenue, in the city of Los Angeles. Some business owners said potential customers see the run-down appearance of that segment of Gardena Boulevard and fear crime. Gardena’s renovation plan does not extend into the Gateway, city officials said.

Grants administrator Doi said Gardena officials have talked to representatives of Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores’ office about extending the Gardena Boulevard renovations east of Vermont, but so far nothing is planned.

“I think it’s a blighted area,” Mamiya said of the Gateway. “There is a very, very definite difference between Gardena and the Los Angeles strip.”

Giuliano, who also is president of the Downtown Gardena Business and Professional Assn., said Gardena Boulevard east of Vermont “looks a little scary. I think it has a negative effect.”

Revitalization

Gardena police said crime is not a particular problem on Gardena Boulevard on either side of Vermont. In fact, crime is worse on the more populous Redondo Beach Boulevard, said Lt. Phil Shepherd, a Gardena police spokesman.

Even though city officials estimate it will be at least two years before Gardena residents see vast changes in the street’s appearance, there are already signs of revitalization.

The former Bank of America building is being renovated and readied for use as a medical and office building, Doi said. In 1987, Mamiya’s family invested $500,000 in a new 7,200-square-foot office building that has never had a vacancy, Mamiya said.

Meanwhile, merchants like Giuliano remain hopeful that the city’s plan will help turn the rest of the street around.

“I don’t think anything we do to this street is suddenly going to turn it into Westwood or anything,” Giuliano said. But, he added, “if people know we’re here and we have something they like, they’ll come here to get it.”