Playhouse District Plan Gains Council Support

Spurred by threats of businesses closing or leaving Pasadena, the City Council has moved an ambitious design for an eight-block area around the Pasadena Playhouse into the city projects pipeline and directed the city manager to seek a major new department store to anchor the plan.

The council was cautious not to approve funding for the plan when it was formally presented on Tuesday, though a majority clearly liked the idea of an arts-oriented neighborhood, with department stores and shops and 350 new housing units.

Several major businesses in the district--including Vroman’s Book Store and Robinson’s department store--have been pressing for quick city action. A city investment of about $40 million would attract private investment of $300 million, according to members of the 12-person Pasadena Playhouse District Task Force.

The plan for the area, bounded east and west by Hudson and Oakland avenues and north and south by Union and Green streets, has been in various committees for more than two years. No new developments are expected to be in place before the mid-1990s.

Vroman’s owner, Joel Sheldon, a member of the task force, told the council his store desperately needs more space, either in its present Colorado Boulevard location or elsewhere.

“It’s time for Vroman’s to get some clear direction,” said Sheldon, who suggested that his business would leave that area if the plan did not receive quick approval. “I don’t want to wait another three years.”

Robinson’s, a “stand-alone” store on Colorado Boulevard without major retailing neighbors, has been holding on largely because of its hopes for the playhouse plan, Vice Mayor Rick Cole said. No Robinson’s representative spoke at the meeting.

“Stand-alone department stores are closing all over the country,” Cole said. “(Robinson’s) must either be supported by a second or third major department store (nearby) or it will close.”

The task force offered a design concept for the playhouse district--largely the work of the Berkeley firm of Lyndon/Buchanan Associates--rather than a block-by-block blueprint.

It would turn the district into an attractive neighborhood of plazas and courtyards, with a shady urban park at Colorado Boulevard and El Molino Avenue. The plan calls for coffeehouses, art galleries and a dinner theater.

The plan also envisions a four-block stretch of Colorado Boulevard that now has dilapidated and vacant stores as a bright commercial strip, where pedestrians could stroll along tree-shaded sidewalks.

The idea is to link the established South Lake Avenue and Old Pasadena shopping areas, task force Chairman Albert Lowe said. “It will provide a synergy--new life, beauty, cultural activities--and in so doing, bring a lot of new jobs for Pasadenans,” Lowe said.

One task force member, former Mayor William Bogaard, worried that, although the plan was good, city investment “priming the pump” would not guarantee that private investors would follow. He also expressed reservations about the district attracting too much traffic.

Councilman William Thomson warned that attracting a new department store to Pasadena would be expensive. “It won’t come cheaply,” said Thomson, who has spoken to representatives of Nordstrom. Other cities are competing for Nordstrom stores, Thomson said. “Basically, you have to provide a store for them free of charge,” he added.