L.A. Studies Revitalization of Eastside : Communities: Boyle Heights and El Sereno will be surveyed. Plan would focus on generating more jobs and providing affordable housing in the poor areas.

Ester Maria Lopez remembers when the Plaza del Sol shopping mall in Boyle Heights was an auto dealership.

“My husband bought two cars here in the 1960s,” said the 71-year-old Lopez, who recalls accompanying her late husband to Soto Street to pick up the new autos.

Today, the mall is a ragtag collection of small restaurants, public agencies and struggling merchants trying to eke out a living offering goods and services, food and bus tickets.

“This used to be a fun place,” Lopez said, her voiced echoing down an empty hallway as she left the mall. “It’s too bad. Somebody should do something.”

Somebody may.

City officials recently announced a $160,000 revitalization study to find ways of improving two of Los Angeles’ most densely populated and poorest communities: Boyle Heights and El Sereno. The study is an attempt to reverse the area’s economic slide and the popular perception that the impoverished Eastside is beyond help.

Spearheaded by Councilman Richard Alatorre, the study is a sweeping attempt by Los Angeles city officials to revitalize the area. It will focus on generating more jobs, eradicating urban blight and providing more affordable housing.

The study--dubbed Adelante Eastside--is designed to cover 5,400 acres, virtually all of Boyle Heights and El Sereno. Only the Community Redevelopment Agency’s 1980s study and subsequent work in Hollywood--covering an estimated 1,500 acres--comes close to the scope of the area to be surveyed on the Eastside.

The prospects of what might result from the yearlong study, ranging from new sidewalks and gutters to the possibility of a shopping mall, excite many Eastsiders, including Alatorre.

“This is a very important attempt to improve the social and economic life in these communities,” Alatorre said recently.

Longtime Boyle Heights activist Alex Salazar, who will chair the 36-member citizens advisory panel that will make recommendations for improvements, said the committee will be open to all suggestions.

“That’s what I like about it,” he said. “I personally don’t have any priorities, but we will listen to the what the communities want. We want to turn things around in Boyle Heights and El Sereno.”

According to city officials, the two communities have long been ripe for revitalization.

Boyle Heights, which is just east of downtown, has a housing stock that dates back to the turn of the century. The median value of a single-family home is $136,000, well below the citywide average of $244,500. The area has an estimated population of 65,000 and an average household annual income of $22,931, less than half the citywide average.

And in El Sereno, where housing and population swelled after World War II, the business districts along Huntington Drive and Eastern Avenue have languished in recent years. Merchants have not been able to attract the patronage of new immigrants the way shop owners on Brooklyn Avenue in Boyle Heights have.

Many residents of El Sereno, which is northeast of downtown, said they shop at the new Montebello Town Mall because their bedroom community of 53,000 lacks the variety of stores that a modern shopping mall offers.

“I wish we had something like that in our community,” El Sereno resident Guillermo Martinez said.

According to figures released by city researchers, home values and household income in El Sereno are higher than in Boyle Heights, but are still below the citywide average. The average household income in El Sereno is $32,900 a year; the city average $46,700.

Alatorre, aware of the bitter wrangling over the revitalization of Olvera Street, has repeatedly said he is not certain what will result from the study. Some community activists believe Alatorre is avoiding a public statement about his preference so he cannot be accused of having an agenda.

“I have nothing particular in mind,” Alatorre said. “I want to hear what the community and the committee will say.”

If a redevelopment project is recommended in part of the area studied, additional hearings and council action will be required, officials said.

According to business and community leaders familiar with the study, several proposals are being mentioned as possible recommendations:

* The creation of a shopping mall, anchored by a major retailer. There is ample undeveloped land in El Sereno that could be available for such a project. A determining factor may be the degree of community support for it, city planners say.

* A commercial or light-industrial development on land surrounding the Sears store at Olympic Boulevard and Soto Street. The retailer’s catalogue center, which employed more than 1,000 workers, was closed last year, leaving the possibility that the land formerly occupied by the center could be used. Sears officials insist they have no plans to close the landmark store--opened in 1927--pointing out that the outlet recently reported its best first-quarter sales figures in a decade.

* New environmentally sensitive industry on North Main Street in Boyle Heights. City officials have long favored getting rid of unsightly auto wrecking yards along Mission Road and attracting new businesses. Officials are interested in companies with a long-term commitment to the area.

* Improvement of housing in Boyle Heights. There appears to be little chance of building new housing in the overcrowded area. But consultants hired to help carry out the study believe a street-by-street analysis of the area could lead to special loan programs to spruce up existing housing, much like an earlier CRA program in which 960 homes and apartments there were rehabilitated with low-interest loans.

* A hit list of unwanted projects, such as the proposed state prison downtown. “The people have made it clear that they don’t want a prison here,” said Raul Escobedo, a partner in Barrio Planners Inc., an East Los Angeles firm hired as a consultant to the study.

Frank Villalobos, the firm’s principal partner, has been at the forefront in the fight against the prison.

“I’ve known this community for 20 years,” said Escobedo, who was raised on the Eastside. “I don’t want outsiders to do this study. People know who we are and where we are.”

But one community activist who asked that his name not be used said there may be opposition nonetheless.

“Remember, you’re talking about a community that is fighting a state prison,” he said. “You’re also talking about folks who are afraid people might be displaced by the (CRA). They’re not going to say ‘yes’ just because everybody says they want to clean up the community.”

Alatorre, aware of potential mistrust of any change in the two communities, has repeatedly said the study will not necessarily result in a CRA project in either area.

Other Latino activists said the study may be well intentioned but could turn out to be a Band-Aid approach to more serious problems beyond its scope.

Dr. Gloria Romero, an assistant professor of psychology at Cal State Los Angeles, complained that the study panel should be expanded to include federal and state officials who can address the broader problems of the area--crime, lack of education and family issues.

Others criticized the advisory group’s composition: only eight of its 36 members are women and it is top-heavy with business and civic leaders, they say. They also point out that organized labor, which could play a pivotal role in any revitalization work, is not represented on the committee.

But such concerns don’t seem to matter to Lopez. She just wants better stores at Plaza del Sol.

“People can talk all they want,” she said. “Make them do something.”