Officials Call L.A.’s Image Key to Recovery

“Sell L.A.!”

That’s economist Jack Kyser’s advice to San Fernando Valley business people worried that the recent earthquake will delay Southern California’s economic recovery.

The biggest obstacle to a recovery is overcoming Los Angeles’ negative image--compounded by the quake, coming on top of riots, fires and floods, said Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

Selling L.A. is also the goal of the New Los Angeles Marketing Project, a coalition of business groups, local government agencies and industry representatives that Mayor Richard Riordan’s office is trying to put together, Deputy Mayor Robin Kramer said Wednesday. Many other cities already have such marketing programs, including Miami, Dallas, Phoenix and Denver.

“This city has a lot of assets, but we’ve forgotten how to market them,” Kyser told a meeting of the Valley Development Forum, a local nonprofit business group, at the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel in Studio City Wednesday.

The audience of about 40 real estate and other professionals heard the same pep talk from Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgardillo and Laurel Shockley, deputy director of the Los Angeles office of the California Trade and Commerce Agency.

Like most economists, Kyser expects Los Angeles-area companies to announce more layoffs this year. “Then, in 1995, we’ll start to see modest job creation,” he said.

But despite the Jan. 17 temblor, the recovery “is on track and could even get here a little sooner” because of the infusion of $9.5 billion in federal earthquake relief.

Insurance companies also are expected to pay $2.5 billion to individuals and businesses that suffered damage in the quake.

Some local business people who attended the Valley Development Forum’s monthly breakfast meeting said they already see encouraging signs.

“Builders are starting to come out of their caves for the first time since 1990,” said Jay S. Ross, who supervises major-construction lending for Woodland Hills-based Entertainment & Mortgage Corp.

Tourism has also picked up. Right after the quake, several tour groups canceled trips to the Universal Studios theme park, said Lawrence D. Spungin, president of MCA Development Co., based in Universal City. But attendance at the park, theaters and the CityWalk attraction has now returned to near summer levels, he said.

But other Valley business people say California’s business climate still is not as friendly as it should be, despite the state Legislature’s recent progress on some issues, such as lowering employers’ cost of workers’ compensation insurance.

Both the state and the city of Los Angeles have tried to make it easier to obtain building permits. But more streamlining is needed, said Pasadena architect Lance Bird. “We continue to have nothing but problems with permitting. It’s a disaster.”

Delgardillo defended the city’s efforts but warned that it will take time to dispel the notion that Los Angeles is a bad place to do business.

“For us, it requires a whole cultural change. We’ve never had to do economic development in the city of Los Angeles before,” he said. “All we had to do was wait a few days after the Rose Parade was shown on television in the Midwest to get 300 calls from people saying, ‘We want to move there.’ ”

Kramer said the New Los Angeles Marketing Project is still “in the conceptual phase” but hopes to target businesses that are already located in the Southland or want to be, visitors and area residents.