Plaza Would Enshrine the Ambience of Saigon

It was on a weekend trek north to Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1976 that Frank Jao first saw the need for a Little Saigon.

Many of the shoppers, he realized, were like him, from Orange County, and had no place closer to shop for foods and other items from their native land.

Now the 44-year-old resident of Huntington Beach owns assorted mini-malls and the two biggest retail complexes in the heart of the Vietnamese commercial district, and is credited with being one of Little Saigon’s pioneers.

But Jao is not done yet. He has introduced plans to build a unique plaza with the ambience of the original Saigon, containing an ancestral shrine and French Colonial buildings where business owners can live above their retail shops, restaurants or offices--all requiring a mixed zoning law that Westminster does not have.

City officials, however, are studying ways to adopt such an ordinance because Jao’s latest project would fit in with their just-created Bolsa Corridor Specific Plan, aimed at making the area an even bigger tourist attraction.

Jao’s vision of Little Saigon, hatched more than 15 years ago, is in the final stage of becoming reality with the recent proposal. Adding a language and culture school to the area in the future would enhance the process, said Jao, who is Chinese but was born in Vietnam.

The district “should be a small ethnic community of its own and not only should have commercial buildings but also residential and cultural elements,” said Jao, head of Bridgecreek, a development company founded in 1979.

The location of the project would have posed a tough problem even if Jao had not asked for a mixed zoning complex, said Mike Bouvier, the city’s planning director.

The 6 1/2 acres is tucked behind a supermarket, which is in the back of Jao’s Asian Village on Bolsa Avenue near Magnolia Street. The popular outdoor mall has only one entrance and traffic is already congested on most days.

Besides solving the traffic problem, Bridgecreek must also convince city planners the plaza will be able to draw customers to the shops, which won’t be visible from the main corridor.

Jao said there will be additional entrances and exits built in the back of the property flanking Greenville Avenue to relieve traffic. There will also be more parking spaces in the basement level of the new buildings.

As for exposure, construction of a second door and more walkways for the supermarket will display the new plaza to food shoppers, he said. And, of course, there will be visitors to the newly created homes and temple, he said.

The shrine was not designed for Buddha or God but for ancient heroes of Vietnam’s history, the developer said. Such places of worship used to be common in the Southeast Asian country and were especially popular around the Vietnamese New Year, when the populace would go to pay homage and have their fortunes told.

“Who knows? Maybe we would be able to have a thay do (a respected elder teacher) sitting in front of the temple when we celebrate our new year and he could write the ancient sayings in the old characters for people to buy,” Jao said.

It is typical of the man who some say was a key figure in creating a second home for the expatriate Vietnamese.

“He provides hope for the community by letting them have chances of supporting themselves and giving them a place of identity,” said Kathy Buchoz, a former mayor of Westminster and now office manager at Bridgecreek.

Growth in Little Saigon is fine but it has not had direction and now needs organization, like Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, said Don Anderson, assistant city manager and redevelopment director.

The Bolsa Corridor Specific Plan committee will consider creating parking structures, and establish designs and purposes of future buildings that would appeal to tourists from everywhere.

“We want the place to be more than gift shops and restaurants,” Anderson said. “We want it to have culture centers, where maybe entertainment and shows could be held, again, that would appeal to tourists.”