There Glows the Neighborhood : Developer Helps Put Bright Spot in Housing Market by Renovating Depressed Areas for First-Time Buyers
Windows were boarded up, graffiti covered cinder-block walls and lawns were full of weeds. Some of the duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes were in such bad condition that they were abandoned. One served as a gang headquarters.
In short, the block on 204th Street in Harbor Gateway was a perfect candidate for a government rehab project.
But this time it was a Torrance developer, Craig Knickerbocker, who stepped in.
Knickerbocker, whose experience in recent years has been building and renovating fancy homes in communities like Redondo Beach and Beverly Hills, bought most of the block in May and June, and has since renovated eight structures.
The homes on 204th Street near Western Avenue, which are now brightly painted and have picket fences and new lawns, are intended for low- and moderate-income buyers. The duplexes are priced at $184,900, the triplexes at $224,900 and a fourplex at $269,900.
In a bid for neighborhood pride, the rehabilitated block has been given a colorful suburban moniker: Flower Box Homes, for the redwood planters placed under front windows.
“These are a whole bunch of homeowners, not tenants, who take pride in their neighborhood,” said Knickerbocker, whose office is about two miles away in downtown Torrance. “We’ve done million-dollar homes, but this project has been a ball. It’s just been a sight watching this neighborhood turn around.”
There are signs that the street may once again become the quaint neighborhood it was several years ago before gang rivalries escalated, chasing people out.
Since the renovations began, gang members don’t wield their spray cans as often, and crime has dropped, police said.
“These homes were in a sad, sad state,” said Officer Margaret Mazotta, who supervises patrols in the area for the Los Angeles Police Department. “There was no pride in anything. But in a very short time, (Knickerbocker) made an impact.”
Knickerbocker’s motivation for the project had as much to do with making a positive impact as making a buck.
At a time when home prices are still sliding in some areas of the South Bay, one of the few bright spots has been in sales to first-time buyers, whom Knickerbocker expects will occupy many of the rehabilitated houses on 204th Street.
Banks and thrifts are eager to get the foreclosed properties off their books, even if it means they recover only the purchase price or take a loss.
“They can auction off the good properties, but almost can’t get rid of the bad ones,” Knickerbocker said. “But it can be attractive for a buyer if you have the nerve to go into an area. . . . Renovation is not the risk, but it is ‘Will the gangs (vandalize it)?’ ”
Knickerbocker & Associates also bought 10 homes on nearby Del Amo Boulevard and has renovated one so far, with the other nine soon to be completed.
The company bought 16 of the units on 204th Street and Del Amo Boulevard from Coast Federal Savings for $1.9 million, said Peter Hazelrigg of Metro Commercial Realty Corp. in Long Beach, whose firm handled the sale. Two more houses were bought from the Federal National Mortgage Assn. at $117,000 each, said David Wendorff, Flower Box Homes project manager. In addition, he said he recently closed escrow on another house on 204th Street that was owned by Home Savings.
Knickerbocker so far has sold six units.
“Most of the people (negotiating to buy the units from the S & L) looked to use these as apartments and just rent them out,” Hazelrigg said. “Craig wanted to sell them. They liked seeing that potential. . . . He took a big risk, but he’s going to do fine.”
Knickerbocker spent about $750,000 renovating the first eight houses with, among other things, new roofs, garage doors and French windows. Bashed-in front doors were replaced by steel ones. Copper plumbing was installed. Kitchens were redone in white with new cabinets, gas ranges and white Formica countertops.
Exteriors are light blue, yellow or pink instead of gray or beige. Wrought-iron picket fences surround newly sodded yards.
“It was not in good condition,” Fredy Barrios, 30, a restaurant cashier, said of the duplex unit he rented for eight years. “No more.”
He bought the renovated duplex a few months ago with his wife and their two children.
His home is now a picture of suburbia: kids roaming the yard, a Santa cutout on the door, yellow Labrador on a leash.
Barrios and his wife, a clerical worker at a computer company, got a Federal Housing Administration loan. Their monthly payment, reduced because of income they get from renting the other duplex unit, is now about $550, down from the $850 monthly rent they used to pay.
“I always wanted to buy, but I don’t have a lot of money,” Barrios said.
A few doors down, Guillermo Flores also bought the duplex he lived in for three years. But the former conditions were so poor that he and his wife and two sons had moved out by the time Knickerbocker bought the place.
“The bathroom, the carpets, the fences, all the wood was damaged,” said Flores, 33, a cook at a nearby Japanese restaurant. “It was no good before, now it is better. . . . I drove by (and saw it renovated) and said ‘I want to buy.’ ”
Flores, who had been saving for a down payment, also got an FHA loan.
“I had this illusion that I could buy a house, but I could never do it,” he said. “I feel more peaceful (and have) more spirit to live and work. We take very good care of our home.”
Gang parties, graffiti and shootings have diminished, homeowners say, although some credit that to a gang truce called six months ago. Graffiti gets painted over, often by members of Knickerbocker’s construction crew, the morning after it is sprayed.
Still, things are not perfect. Graffiti covers the walls at some nearby apartment complexes and, at a dedication ceremony on Tuesday for Flower Box Homes, gang members loitered just down the street.
“The (gangs’) frustration is over the lack of jobs, and that there is no recreation or park close by,” Officer Mazotta said.
“We want to make the neighborhood look good,” said a young man hanging out nearby. “Everybody is all for it. But there is nothing for people here to do. There’s no park. We don’t have a community center. We don’t have a football or baseball league to join. Where are we going to go?”
Nevertheless, residents and others are hopeful that things on 204th Street are looking up.
“Everyone is just really trying,” Mazotta said. “We’re not going to change overnight, but everyone wants a better place.”
“This is kind of a neat model for other areas,” Knickerbocker said. “This is a takeoff on the white picket fence, the American dream.”
