Lonesome Blues : Business Has Been Slow Since Caltrans Stopped In

The little slice of 1st Street between the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways used to be a bustling thoroughfare. More than 15,000 cars a day motored through the patch of delis, motels and automotive shops on the border of Santa Ana and Tustin.

Today, the area conjures up Hollywood’s image of a ghost town. There are no tumbleweeds rolling through on occasional gusts of wind or faded signs hanging askew over empty saloons. But the street is oddly quiet considering that only six months back it was a well-worn path for freeway travelers.

The California Department of Transportation shut down nearby freeway ramps in December for a renovation project expected to last until February 1993. Meanwhile, the quarter-mile stretch of 1st Street will remain cut off from easy access. Now, merchants say, fewer than 1,000 cars pass daily.

“It’s killing us,” said Henry Karapetian, manager of the 76-room Tustin Suites motel. “We were at almost 50% occupancy in December, before the closure. That’s gradually gone down to 38%.”

Merchants were already confronting a recession that has steadily eaten away their earnings. “The motel industry has been in a slump for two years,” Karapetian said. “Who needed this?”

Inconvenience is an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of freeway construction, said Don Juge, an engineer in the Orange County bureau of Caltrans.

“Any road work interferes with traffic,” Juge said. “It’s the nature of doing work where there is already a lot of demand for the thoroughfare--which is the reason that we are widening these freeways in the first place.”

Before the construction began, drivers could exit off the Santa Ana Freeway directly onto 1st Street or off the Costa Mesa Freeway onto 4th Street, making the small stretch between the two freeways an ideal location for businesses that benefit from drive-by traffic. But since the ramp closures--and the general upheaval of side streets, which are temporarily one-way--reaching the area has become a challenge.

Take Avila’s El Ranchito, for example. Here is the way a hostess at the restaurant gives directions over the telephone to a prospective customer:

“Exit on 17th Street from the 55--normally, you’d exit 4th Street, but that’s closed--then make a right to Tustin Avenue. When Tustin dead-ends, make another right. . . .”

“Hear that?” Karen Edwards, the restaurant’s general manager, said in exasperation. “Last Saturday night, we had a large party that had reservations call and say, ‘We’re lost, so we’re going somewhere else.’ ”

Business has dropped 25% since the construction started, Edwards said: “We’ve laid off two people and cut other employees’ salaries to keep from having to lay off more people. A lot of our employees have kids, so this hits them hard.”

At the nearby Revere House restaurant, only the most determined of customers still jump through the hoops and circuitous one-way detours necessary to get there. On a late weekday afternoon, the spacious eatery’s smoke-filled bar served as a meeting place for 25 or so regulars.

The 36-year-old establishment abuts the Costa Mesa Freeway--now, more closely than ever. The state bought part of the restaurant’s parking lot to squeeze in an extra freeway lane.

“It’s like a funeral procession out there,” owner Robert Restaino said, referring to the trickle of traffic at 5 p.m., when rush hour used to funnel in bumper-to-bumper passersby. He recently put up a big sign reading, “Yes, we’re open,” a clue for those who might assume that the quiet street means otherwise.

Restaino estimated that business at the steak and seafood restaurant is down at least 30% because of the construction. “Add to the economic situation Caltrans blocking off your street--what more could you ask for?” he said.

At Niki’s restaurant, the weak economy has had little effect. “We’re pretty recession-proof,” said Arvinder Gill, owner of the small fast-food Indian eatery in a strip mall. “Our overhead is low. And there aren’t that many Indian restaurants in the area, so we would get customers from all over Orange County.”

But Caltrans proved to be a more formidable foe. “Our dinner business has dropped off almost completely because of this,” Gill said. “We only get localized clientele. We haven’t seen the people from Irvine and Newport Beach for three or four months.”

Still, Gill thinks that he will be able to ride out the yearlong catastrophe. “Then we hope all of our former customers will rediscover us,” he said.

Gill’s next-door neighbor in the mini-mall is not as confident that his business will outlast the ramp closures.

“I’ve been behind on my rent for three months,” said Ben Bandari, owner of Snowhite Cleaners. “I’d been doing reasonably well for the past three years--no hiccups, no problems. But I totally depend on drive-by traffic--I need volume for survival.”

Like others in the vicinity, Bandari said his profits are down 25%. “The small businesses are the ones dying fast,” he said. “We don’t have any cushion.”

Larger businesses, too, are suffering. “It’s a nightmare,” said Ron Jackson, owner of Honda Santa Ana. “Our new-car sales are off 20%, whereas Honda in general is off only about 5%.”

He’s lucky, though, that he has the luxury of an advertising budget. “I don’t rely on drive-by traffic,” Jackson said. “Car dealerships spend a lot on advertising. But other businesses around here can’t afford to advertise.”

Regardless, he said, ads alone can’t undo the damage of the isolation. “By the time you tell someone how to get here, the average guy is completely confused,” he said. “I’m sure we’ve lost customers to dealerships that are easier to find.”

Jackson, like many other merchants, thinks the city of Santa Ana should have taken a more active role in encouraging Caltrans to provide signs guiding disoriented customers to the businesses. “We’re all generating tax dollars for the city, and then they do something like this with no thought to what will happen to the business people,” he said.

Letters of protest from the merchants to city officials have not gone unnoticed. Santa Ana, Tustin and Caltrans officials met Friday to discuss ways of alleviating the businesses’ woes.

“We agreed to put signs on 4th Street directing motorists to businesses on 1st Street,” said George Alvarez, city engineer for Santa Ana. “We want to make the motorists aware of the businesses.”

Both Santa Ana and Tustin may have learned a few lessons that can be applied as other ramps along the freeways are closed for the expansion. “In the future, we will meet with every business one on one to explain the closures,” Alvarez said. “We are looking at ways to help motorists get access to business affected by the construction.”

Yes, We’re Open! Caltrans’ closure of the 1st Street bridge over the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways has made access difficult for customers of the two dozen businesses marooned in the triangle formed by the two freeways and 4th Street. And the sitaution doesn’t appear likely to change until 1993, when Caltrans expects the project to be completed.