El Segundo Building Owner Shows the Way on Refurbishment Effort : Development: John Nisley hopes his restoration project in the old downtown will encourage others to preserve the area.
John Nisley grew up in Palos Verdes Estates in a house designed by Cliff May, whose designs are frequently inspired by 19th-Century California adobe ranchos.
Nisley later became an architectural buff, joining the Los Angeles Conservancy, which works to preserve vintage structures, and becoming a regular on tours of historic buildings.
In 1971, he bought a distinguished building of his own, the Gilbert store and apartment building on Richmond Street in El Segundo’s historic old downtown.
Now, several years and half a million dollars later, Nisley is proudly showing visitors around his restored architectural gem and hoping to encourage others to refurbish the area.
“I had a good brick building, and it was an opportunity to do something myself,” said Nisley, an El Segundo resident and real estate investor.
The Gilbert building was his first investment. He said he paid members of the Gilbert family $96,000 for the five-lot property.
When the two-story brick building with its distinctive wooden balcony went up in 1919, Richmond between Grand Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard was the town’s main business street. El Segundo was in its infancy, born a company town in 1911 when what is now Chevron USA Inc. located its second oil refinery there.
There were later additions to the building, and by the time Nisley bought it, it needed extensive work. He spent several years doing much of that work himself, including constructing a large white-lattice back porch with stairs leading to the second floor. The major restoration started in 1987, an elaborate project that included making the structure earthquake-safe, restoring the green-and-white balcony and the facade, and renovating upstairs apartments with such amenities as marble, fireplaces and decorative glass.
Nisley said he hopes what he has done will spark a Richmond Street renaissance of restaurants and shops in buildings harking back to the days that have lent the name Old Town to this part of El Segundo.
“This used to be a crowded city street,” he said.
Indeed, historical pictures and accounts depict a street filled with pedestrians and automobiles, hotels, stores and a movie theater that still stands. City Hall was once at the corner of Richmond and Franklin Avenue, now a vacant lot.
A few other Richmond buildings have been spruced up in recent years, and some merchants say the retail climate is on the upswing. But others say that Nisley’s dream is threatened by economics and by the looming legal requirement that unreinforced brick and masonry buildings be made earthquake-safe or demolished.
Manhattan Beach engineer Melvyn Green, who did the earthquake work on the Gilbert building, said reinforcement costs on such structures range between $10 and $15 a square foot.
He said earthquake-safety requirements, aimed at saving lives, could kill off old El Segundo buildings because owners “who look at the bottom line and don’t think of the buildings themselves” will probably choose to demolish them.
El Segundo is working on such an ordinance, according to the city.
A draft of the ordinance--which could be enacted within 90 days--would give owners of unreinforced buildings up to 270 days after receiving an order from the city to submit plans for reinforcement or demolition.
John Shelton, who owns seven buildings on Richmond between Franklin Avenue and El Segundo Boulevard, is not optimistic that preservation will succeed.
“Everyone likes old buildings, but no one wants to support them financially,” Shelton said, adding that so many buildings have been lost to parking lots on the block that there is not a lot left to work with.
Shelton did an extensive renovation job on a building that houses the Sally Jean’s Mercantile gift shop, but he said that for economic reasons he would not spend the money to make that--or any of his other buildings--earthquake-safe.
George Renfro, who owns the Old Town Music Hall theater on Richmond, said he would like to upgrade the 1920 building because of a sentimental attachment.
“I was born in El Segundo, the same year the theater was built,” said Renfro, who leases the building to operators who show vintage movies and present live concerts on a Wurlitzer theater organ.
But he said a decision to reinforce the building will depend on costs.
“Dollar-wise, you can’t throw money at something that won’t bring it back,” he said, adding that he thinks earthquake requirements “definitely could scuttle” historic preservation on the street.
Downtown El Segundo Inc., a city-funded nonprofit group striving for grass-roots revitalization of older business areas, hopes to give Richmond a little help by producing videos about the Gilbert building and the theater for the city’s community access cable channel. The group also wants to start walking tours that would include Richmond.
Nisley too will put some more of his time and money into the street. This year, he plans to build a Victorian-style retail and apartment structure immediately adjoining the Gilbert building on the north. He said a stucco house attached to the building on the south side will be converted into a restaurant with outdoor patio seating in the rear yard.
Despite the pessimism of others, Nisley thinks his hopes of restoring the street are not unfounded.
“It takes someone to come in, make an investment, and get it started,” he said.
