Project Miffs Carlsbad Merchants : Redevelopment: Noise, sidewalk barriers and parking bans from ‘streetscape’ construction keep customers at bay, business owners say.

Carlsbad’s vaunted redevelopment program, which reminted a tarnished downtown into a shinyseaside village, is nearing another milestone. But Marcie Nicholson doesn’t much care anymore.

She is a sacrifice to progress.

Just as Nicholson was getting her art gallery off the ground, redevelopment officials last year began an ambitious, $6- to $8-million “streetscape” program befitting a community that yearns to rival Carmel and Santa Barbara.

Work crews noisily toiled along Carlsbad Boulevard, gussying up the street and turning it into a pretty path through the city’s commercial area. Nicholson recalls being promised that construction would be done at night so that daytime business wouldn’t be disrupted, but it didn’t turn out that way. She watched her cherished art gallery slowly die from dwindling customers.

“I knew, since I was fairly new in this area I couldn’t survive it financially,” she said. “I was using my own funds to pay the rent, it was killing me.”

Finally last July, as the street work clamored and hammered on and patrons steered clear, her business “went down to practically nothing. I had a nice landlord who let me out of my three-year lease.”

As Nicholson locked the art gallery doors for the last time, she left behind neighboring shop owners who are still struggling to survive and counting the days until the streetscape project is finished and customers return.

Kathleen Leavitt, testily viewing the city’s no-parking sign in the construction area outside her Carlsbad “AAA” Florist shop on Carlsbad Boulevard, said this week, “We went from $1,000 days to $24 days. It’s like the flower shop from hell.”

But, strange as it may seem, many of the business people who are suffering during the streetscaping are faithful believers in what Carlsbad is becoming. Even Nicholson, who complained that “the way they went about it was unfair,” conceded the project “is going to make the area more attractive to people.”

Through redevelopment, the downtown that was once pocked with empty stores, grungy bars and cheap flophouses has already evolved into a place tourists tell one another about.

Buoyed by success, the redevelopment agency’s literature on its streetscape project proclaims that, rather than seeking to become just another clogged Southern California beach town, “we intend to pattern ourselves more in the peaceful, meandering mode of communities such as Carmel or Santa Barbara.”

As Patty Cratty, acting director of the city redevelopment agency, said, “It’s not that we want to be another Santa Barbara or Carmel. We want to create a charm of our own.”

Crucial to that identity is sculpting attractive and convenient routes through the downtown, namely Carlsbad Boulevard, the main coastal route, and Elm Avenue, linking Interstate 5 and the coast.

Under the city’s two-year streetscape plan, slated for completion in 1991, the boulevard now has a median strip and is being landscaped. A colorful bird of paradise medallion has been set in the sidewalk at one corner of Carlsbad Boulevard and Elm Avenue. A northern gateway will be built.

Soon, on-street parking will be banished on Elm, which will be widened from two to four lanes. Three new parking lots, completed last fall, are expected to make up for the lost street parking.

In the final streetscape phase, decorative paving, street lights, banners, fountains, benches, bollards and kiosks will be added.

“It’s going to make a beautiful downtown,” said Cratty.

And, when it’s done, the streetscaping will be the redevelopment program’s last hurrah for a while. That’s because the agency, which sold a $12-million bond issue two years ago, is tapped out. “Until we get those bonds retired, we can’t bond again,” said Cratty.

So, for the next few years, the agency will return to the drawing board. It will focus on how to utilize funds that have already been set aside for economical housing and cultural facilities, and recontemplate the village’s design.

Although the streetscape program nears completion, not everybody is cheering. For some merchants, progress has come at a high price.

For Leavitt, who had managed other people’s stores for 20 years, the florist shop was her first time to shine. “This is my first store, just me,” she said.

Between the daytime work, sidewalk barriers and occasional parking bans in front of her shop, “I’m in a real panic.” Unless the no-parking signs stay down, “this is going to deeply affect my Valentine’s Day business. I’ve got a three-day shot to make some money to recoup my losses,” she said.

“I’m truly disappointed in the lack of care by the city,” she said.

James Clift, who has owned a barbecue restaurant on the boulevard for three years, said his business is down by about 25%. “It’s back to like the first winter when we opened,” he said. He tries to be circumspect about the disruptive work, saying, “For the people who can hang on, it’s going to be a benefit.”

Down at the liquor store at Carlsbad Boulevard and Elm Avenue, John Seibert is cursing what the streetscaping has done to his trade, which was off 25% in the winter and 35% from last year’s final quarter.

Seibert, 59, said he and his wife, Peggie, “reached a point 18 months ago when we were able to semi-retire. But that picture is rapidly dissolving.”

There are similar woes up and down the street. Bob Nielsen, who handles commercial and residential property in Carlsbad, said some merchants didn’t realize how severely the project’s would affect them.

“It’s awkward to go anyplace, and a lot of people don’t want to bother” with shopping downtown, he said.

Cratty acknowledged that the streetscaping has been difficult for merchants and that “contractual problems” added to the woes by causing delays and work during the day instead of at night.

“We are very sympathetic. We knew going in it was going to create hardships,” she said. “We tried to do all we could to lessen the impacts.”

The Carlsbad Boulevard construction is scheduled to be completed next month. The next major undertaking will be widening Elm, which has a number of restaurants, gas stations and banks.

Leavitt will be glad when the commotion moves from her street, but doesn’t expect the complaints to end. “We’re just small businesses. Wait until they deal with the big boys on Elm,” she said.