Bane of the Boulevard : Subway Construction Has Choked Some Businesses Along Wilshire
The once-crowded outdoor tables of the restaurant Upstage have been empty for months, and owner Mike Begakis had to fire half his staff.
Walk-in customers have become retail dinosaurs in Brian Lee’s 23-Minute Photo Shop: Lee says they are virtually extinct.
George Harb, who runs a men’s clothing store, offers to travel to customers’ offices to show his wares because they will not come to him anymore. He is thinking about hiring a driver to fetch clients.
Since work began on the second segment of the city’s subway in the Mid-Wilshire district, traffic has been hopelessly snarled, gas and telephone lines have been severed and gaping holes sunk along the street allowed winter rains to flood basements. The historic Wiltern Center building has sunk more than one inch, leaving it riddled with cracks. Big chunks of the green terrazzo, a hallmark of the famous building, were bitten off and destroyed by backhoe operators.
“The subway coming down Wilshire Boulevard is what Baghdad would look like if we took it during Desert Storm,” said Wayne Ratkovich, a managing partner of the group that owns the Art Deco Wiltern Center.
Some Wilshire landlords, merchants and restaurateurs say they doubt that they will still be around to reap the benefit of booming consumer traffic when the second segment of the Metro Red Line subway opens in 1996.
Construction--and the ensuing havoc--has caused many retail and restaurant businesses to lose up to 50% of their clients. Others have shut down. Although the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission approved creation of a $25-million fund five months ago to help the affected businesses, that loan program has not gotten off the ground.
Neil Peterson, who recently stepped down as commission executive director, acknowledged the problems.
“They have a legitimate beef and we are very sensitive to it. We’re doing everything we possibly can to get the program up and running,” he said.
Leslie Porter, the commission’s deputy executive director who oversees the loan program, failed to return repeated phone calls. Landlords said they first were told that the program would start in January--a date that kept getting pushed back. When the transportation commission promised the loan program, landlords said they backed away from their threat to file a lawsuit.
“Shop and property owners feel the commission may have been deceptive and was buying time to stave off legal action--that is the feeling in the community,” said Ken Bernstein, executive director of the Wilshire Stakeholders Group, a nonprofit organization of business and property owners.
During construction of the Red Line’s first segment, shop and property owners filed a lawsuit after complaining that business had been devastated. Before digging began for the second segment, transportation officials met with neighborhood landlords and merchants, seeking to assure them that the chaos suffered by the downtown community would not happen again. This time would be different, this time experts had learned from mistakes, transportation officials said.
Many who attended a community meeting at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple believed the message. Yes, they conceded, there would be some disruption. But no, they decided, it would not destroy them.
“The trouble really began when we were told by LACTC that construction in this neighborhood would bear no resemblance to what happened downtown. We assumed it would be much better; in reality, it is much worse,” Ratkovich said.
When construction began on the second subway segment two years ago, workers lifted the level of Wilshire Boulevard about three feet in places, so that it towers above the sidewalk and shop windows. Machinery and stacks of materials often obscure many shops. Occasionally, Wilshire Boulevard is closed to all traffic. Officials say the street work in the neighborhood should end this fall.
Kathy Irish, a transportation commission spokeswoman, said the agency and the construction company have tried to ease the burden on the neighborhood.
“We have been extremely sensitive about construction and its impact,” Irish said. “This project happens to be very important for the city. When we do our work, we are taking extra efforts to work with the community.”
Irish pointed out that some members of the commission’s staff have been placed in an office on Wilshire to handle complaints and keep the community informed of developments. Officials there have tried to help shop owners, offering advice on advertising and supplying banners to some. The commission also has pledged to reimburse owners for repairs of damage caused by subway construction.
But some in the neighborhood said that it often takes almost a year to be reimbursed.
Irish noted that it is difficult to sort out how much of the impact on the neighborhood is because of the recession, the riots and construction.
Andy Miliotis, who manages commercial property along Wilshire, said his advice to others expecting subway construction is simple: “Prepare for the siege; get out now if you can. It’s a miracle for any small retail merchant to survive (subway) construction.”
Restaurant owner Begakis has seen his income drop 50%. He once closed at 9 p.m. after serving dinner; now he closes at 5 p.m. because there is no dinner crowd. In the weeks ahead, he figures he will start shutting on weekends because Saturday and Sunday street closures keep his weekend clientele away.
In January, Begakis saw his business drop to the lowest level in eight years. During the early days of construction, diners continued to eat at the outside cafe tables. But with all the grit from machinery and construction pits, the food tasted crunchy and the noise was unbearable. “They issued earplugs to my employees,” Begakis said.
Workers broke the water main and Begakis’ restaurant flooded several times. Once the water rushed through the door while people were eating.
“We had to put sandbags down before customers could get in or out,” he added.
With the water damage, wall tiles began to chip and floors began to crack. Three weeks ago, a health inspector cited the restaurant because of the damage.
“Anywhere,” Begakis sighed, “would be better than this for business.”
The Red Line’s Next Leg:
The next 6.7-mile leg of the Red Line subway will be built in two phases. The first will run from MacArthur Park to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenues, with the opening scheduled for 1996. The second portion will extend to Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street and is set to open in 1998.
