Merchants Cheer Study on Reinvigorating Wilmington

Scott Parry remembers a time when Avalon Boulevard in Wilmington was just like any Main Street in America.

Twenty years ago, the street was the heart of the waterfront community’s downtown commercial district, a place where the streets were clean and the stores were busy. “You could walk down the street and feel comfortable,” Parry recalls.

But today, both the boulevard and Wilmington’s downtown business district seem to be slowly dying, Parry says. There is a dearth of stores, buildings are scarred by graffiti, and sidewalks are more crowded at night with transients than shoppers.

“It has definitely gone downhill,” Parry said.

Hoping to reverse that slide, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday directed city redevelopment officials to launch a $650,000 study to devise a plan to bring new life to the district.

The study, requested by Harbor Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, is aimed at converting the blighted core of downtown Wilmington into a prosperous business hub. The two-year study by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency will eventually produce a blueprint for new commercial development in the four-block district bounded by I and G streets and Marine and Broad avenues, officials said.

Describing downtown as a critical source of jobs and economic stability in the harbor, Flores told her council colleagues Wednesday that the area has declined so dramatically over the years that its future as a commercial thoroughfare is in doubt.

Her warning was echoed by downtown merchants and business leaders.

“It’s been a gradual decline that has really picked up speed in the last four or five years,” said Parry, who for 22 years has worked for Marine Printing at 818 N. Avalon Blvd. The business, owned by Lee Wasson, has been at the same location since 1922.

“This is a blighted area,” added Lois Denzin, executive director of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce. “We have no place to go but up.”

Officials said Wednesday that a key goal of the study will be to integrate the business district with commercial improvements already being studied for Wilmington’s waterfront, a gritty swath of industrial uses that officials hope to replace with shops and restaurants.

Until now, said Denzin, the community’s downtown merchants have been overwhelmed both by the realities of today’s retail market and the inability to survive in stores that require huge investments for remodeling or earthquake retrofits.

“There has been no motivation for people to start fixing” their businesses, Denzin said.

Now, however, the prospect of a redevelopment project suggests that the city might help restore the old commercial district, according to Denzin and others.

“The image you project to outsiders is always reflected in your downtown commercial corridor,” she said. “So, of course, we are eager to seize this opportunity to turn around” the downtown area.