At the Crossroads : Can Developers and Merchants Return Broadway to Its Glory Days?

In its heyday, it was Los Angeles’ classiest strip, a bustling thoroughfare studded with bright lights, fine department stores and architectural works of art. Before Hollywood Boulevard, its palatial baroque- and rococo-style theaters showcased glitzy world premieres and lively vaudeville performances.

Today, more than 50 years after it reigned supreme, the Downtown Broadway corridor is a shadow of its once-glamorous self, struggling to find its place in an urban culture dominated by suburban sprawl. Its sidewalks are dirty and die at night. Its opulent movie palaces play to sparse crowds or have been converted to discount retail outlets. The fear of crime pervades.

But developers and city officials, seeking to lure more people to live, work and shop in the area, are pinning their hopes on ambitious redevelopment plans and increased private-sector involvement to recapture Broadway’s faded luster.

The area, stretching roughly from 2nd Street to Olympic Boulevard, is already a major shopping district for Southern California’s growing Latino market and features one of the city’s liveliest daytime street scenes. Aiming to build on those strengths, city bureaucrats have commissioned a $150,000 study to help establish an entertainment district centered around the historic theaters.

With a mix of shoppers and a unique street scene, developers and officials hope to create a diverse, festive environment teeming with activity at all hours, as envisioned in a recently released Downtown Strategic Plan. The 137-page document, prepared over the past four years by citizens and government officials, sets forth far-reaching proposals to guide Downtown business and residential development into the next century.

Parts of the face lift already are under way. Near 3rd Street, a $65-million renovation will improve the Grand Central Market, add a parking structure and build 121 mixed-income apartment units next door at the Million Dollar Theater building. The developers hope to keep the current Latino clientele and attract a wider mix of customers ranging from several thousand state office workers who will be relocated Downtown over the next several years to tenants of new residential developments.

*

And, in what has become a nationwide trend of private groups reclaiming blighted downtown areas, Broadway business owners recently formed an assessment district to raise funds for street cleaning and other improvements.

“I see an extraordinary set of opportunities,” said Ira Yellin, developer of the Grand Central project and owner of the Bradbury Building across the street, where a $12-million renovation restored the office structure to its turn-of-the-century splendor. “We have one of the great boulevards that the city has ever built.”

But skeptics say that it could be years before the plans for Broadway yield benefits, which could be too long for the street’s businesses that are on the verge of going under. “It’s a good idea, but the question is how long is it going to take?” asked Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles.

Business and marketing experts say a successful turnaround could take five to 15 years and would need to include improved parking and more restaurants and stores that attract middle-class customers of all ethnicities. Most of the street’s shoppers are low-income immigrants, 57% of whom earned $10,000 or less a year, according to a 1988 Community Redevelopment Agency study.

Patronage of stores along Broadway has also declined by as much as 20% since 1990, according to a Community Redevelopment Agency draft report prepared in December. The decrease was attributed mainly to the recession, but was also due to competition from nearby malls and commercial areas that are drawing away Latinos, such as Pacific Avenue in Huntington Park.

“I don’t know how long many of us are going to be able to hang on,” said Richard Blitz, owner of Farmacia Million Dollar near 3rd Street, who has been doing business on Broadway for 25 years. Like many other business owners, he supports plans to revitalize the strip.

Broadway’s glory days date back to the first third of the century. From 1907 to 1932, the Broadway and Bullocks department stores and more than a dozen movie houses and performing arts theaters were built between 3rd Street and Olympic Boulevard. During that era, the strip reigned as the state’s largest-grossing theater district, according to the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation.

*

The Cameo Theater, which opened in 1910 at 528 S. Broadway, held the distinction of being the oldest continuously running movie house in California until it closed in 1991. It is now a retail clothing outlet. Also opening on the same block in 1910 was the Pantages Theater, which showcased the renowned vaudeville circuit of the same name. It was founded by entertainment magnate Alexander Pantages, who built the Hollywood Pantages Theater in 1929. The Pantages on Broadway changed its name to the Arcade and has since closed.

One of the most splendid movie palaces was the Los Angeles Theater, which opened at 615 S. Broadway in 1931 with the premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights.” Celebrities attending the gala included Chaplin, Albert Einstein and prominent architect S. Charles Lee, who designed the Los Angeles and a number of other movies houses across the country.

The $2-million rococo-style theater featured an ornate facade of Corinthian columns, a luxurious lobby modeled after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and a ballroom where patrons waiting for the next show could dance or dine in an adjacent restaurant.

“The area was very different back then,” said theater impresario Bruce Corwin, whose family has owned a number of Broadway movie houses for three generations. “It was just a wonderful place. It was the spot to be.”

Corwin owns the Los Angeles and three other Broadway theaters, which now show English- and Spanish-language films.

By the 1950s, competition from theaters in Hollywood and suburban department stores had begun to take a toll on the boulevard. The area suffered a slow but steady decline that continues to this day, longtime business owners say.

On a recent afternoon, the scene at Nelson’s clothing store at 341 S. Broadway reflected the current business climate: The only people in the shop were the owner and two employees.

“It’s dead,” said Joyce Weintraub, who, along with her husband, has owned Nelson’s and another Broadway clothing outlet for 40 years. The family plans to close Nelson’s at the end of the month.

In the 1950s and early ‘60s, Weintraub recalled, the Broadway at 4th Street and Bullocks three blocks away were the magnets that attracted droves of customers with money to spend. But Broadway shut down in 1973; Bullocks and the May Co. followed about 10 years later.

The street’s clientele has also changed, from middle-class whites to lower-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants. “We lost the white people,” said Weintraub, who adds that the Latinos are loyal customers but lack the disposable income of their white counterparts.

Though they lack spending power, Latinos have energized the boulevard, turning it into a traditional Latin American paseo , where people flock to see and be seen.

*

Daily, the rhythmic sounds of salsa and cumbia blare from discotecas , or record shops. Store displays, with everything from cowboy boots to exotic chiles, spill onto crowded sidewalks. And shop owners, such as Young-Sun Kwon--a Korean immigrant who speaks impeccable Spanish--shout “ Buen precios! Entre! Entre! “ (“Good prices! Come in!”) to anyone who will listen.

But amid the festive atmosphere, the signs of urban decay abound: Sidewalks are littered, panhandlers work the crowd and drunks often urinate in public.

Edmond Khanian, whose family owns Empire Wholesale electronics, complains that the homeless, drug addicts and winos have scared away his customers. “I’ve seen people shoot drugs right in front of the store,” he said, adding that he doesn’t blame people for staying away. “Honestly, if I wanted to go shopping, I wouldn’t come here.”

The derelicts have helped fuel a perception that Broadway is unsafe--a perception that police say is unwarranted.

“It’s really not that bad,” said Sgt. Mark Weissmann, whose Metropolitan Transit Authority officers conduct daily foot patrols from a substation in the Million Dollar Building. He could not recall a single arrest for a violent crime in the past year.

Still, such assurances are of little consolation to would-be customers.

“The women in my office don’t like to come down” to Broadway, said Chris Gorstad, a deputy state attorney general who works at the Ronald Reagan State Office Building on Spring Street. He said the women fear crime, but added that their concerns are “based more on impressions than experiences.”

Gorstad, sipping a latte at the Grand Central Market, said he has never had a problem in nearly three years of frequenting the area. Like other patrons who were interviewed, he said cleaner streets, better marketing, more parking and a few upscale establishments would polish Broadway’s tarnished image.

“We would like to come here more . . . but there’s not many bathrooms, which makes it difficult for your children,” Ernesto Ponce said as he watched his 5- and 7-year-old boys battle each other in a martial-arts video game at an arcade near 7th Street.

The Downey resident also complained that whenever he visits Broadway, he must pay $5 to park. However, most shoppers rely on public transportation or hitching rides with friends and relatives. According to the 1988 redevelopment agency report, 61% of Broadway’s shoppers do not own a vehicle.

City officials, developers and the local business association are taking such figures and complaints to heart.

On Feb. 2, the City Council approved the city’s first assessment district that requires tenants to pay a percentage of their gross business receipts. The fees, which will range from $200 to $7,000, are expected to raise $500,000 a year.

*

The assessment district resulted from several years of work by Miracle on Broadway, a business association that will submit an assessment-fee spending program to the City Council for approval. Likely uses will include street cleaning and marketing, said Estela Lopez, the association’s executive director.

To augment the assessment funds, redevelopment agency officials have applied for a $2.1-million federal grant to pay for Broadway sidewalk improvements. A decision on the grant is expected in March.

Though the $500,000 is small compared to the need, Lopez said just the fact that a district has been formed will send a strong message that businesses are taking steps to improve the area. Similar efforts have succeeded elsewhere, as private groups have taken back blighted downtown areas across the country.

“It’s a reclaiming of the public environment that we have let fall into disarray,” said Paul R. Levy, executive director of the Center City District in Philadelphia, where business owners pay for security patrols and street cleaners who wear bright uniforms. A recent survey there found that an overwhelming majority of shoppers feel safer, Levy said, and retail sales have jumped as much as 25% since the program began two years ago.

Developer Yellin is hoping that his multimillion-dollar project will be the tonic that cures the ills between 3rd and 4th streets. Plans for the Grand Central Market include creating a 1930s look on the inside, restoring the original facade to its turn-of-the-century elegance and adding a restaurant on the Hill Street side to attract Bunker Hill workers.

The 121 apartments at the Million Dollar building will be one- and two-bedroom units with mahogany fireplaces, varying in price from affordable to market rate. A gym will be included in the development, which Yellin hopes will attract tenants ranging from the elderly to artists and young professionals seeking a diverse urban experience.

The two projects are expected to be completed in the fall of 1995.

“It’s going to be fantastic,” Yellin said. “This area could become like Greenwich Village.”

He and others are hoping for relief from the state government, which plans to transfer about 3,500 office workers Downtown over the next several years. State officials are considering renovating the old building that housed the Broadway at 4th Street to house some of the workers, said Donald R. Spivack, who is heading the redevelopment agency team overseeing renovation in the area.

But real estate agents point out that the state workers will occupy only 750,000 square feet of office space throughout Downtown--a paltry amount considering the huge vacancy rates on Broadway. According to CRA statistics, Broadway alone has about 2 million square feet of vacant or underutilized office space.

Real estate agents also add that since rental rates are equally priced throughout much of Downtown, most private companies are likely to continue opting for cleaner, upscale sites on and around Bunker Hill.

“Where would you rather be?” asked Brian Edwards, a leasing agent for Cushman & Wakefield, which is having difficulty renting a refurbished commercial property in the 600 block of South Broadway.

Perhaps the most ambitious proposal is to establish an entertainment district. Similar efforts have been unsuccessful. But Spivack said any new attempt will rely on solid marketing and be linked to larger Downtown development and transportation projects outlined in the Strategic Plan.

The $150,000 redevelopment agency study, expected to be completed in March, will recommend that several Broadway theaters be used for concert, theatrical and motion picture uses aimed at the lucrative Latino entertainment market, the authors say.

In 1992, the Latino music industry grossed $130 million in Los Angeles County, and more than 2.5 million people filled sold-out entertainment venues, said consultant Charles Loveman of Kostmon & Associates, who is helping to prepare the study.

“It’s just a market that is really emerging,” Loveman said. “What we’re saying is that the theater spaces are already there. Let’s make an investment that solves the blight problem, restores Broadway to the street it once was and makes Los Angeles the Hispanic entertainment capital.”

The total costs and financing sources have not been determined for the entertainment district. But a draft report puts the price for refurbishing five Broadway theaters as high as $31 million. That would include building a multiscreen complex in one of the theaters, fixing worn-out interiors and upgrading sound systems.

Theater owner Corwin, who as a child experienced Broadway’s heyday, is optimistic that the faded strip can once again shine brightly. “We’re hanging on by our fingernails,” he said. “But we’re hopeful things can change.”