Communities Seek Ways to Save Dying Downtowns : Recovery: Even before the quake, commercial strips of Canoga Park and Reseda were in trouble. Merchants and residents meet to discuss revitalization.

No one was under any illusions.

They gathered with high hopes and big plans in Winnetka over the weekend, but few of the 100 or so people sorting out the future of Canoga Park and Reseda really believed their down-and-out downtowns would ever be anything more than downright dowdy.

Even that, though, would be an improvement over the trash-strewn parking lots, the boarded-up shop windows and the desolate sidewalks that now line Sherman Way through both communities.

“We are not creating another 3rd Street Promenade,” Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick cautioned, opening a two-day workshop intended to help turn around the failing commercial areas in her west San Fernando Valley district. “We are not going to paint castles in the sky. This is the first step.”

Once two of the Valley’s small-town jewels, the downtown strips of Canoga Park and Reseda have spent most of the last two decades in a tailspin--their business sucked away by the malls and the changing public tastes. After the Northridge earthquake knocked out dozens of shops, the neighborhoods have declined even further.

So frustrated residents and merchants of both communities spent the weekend meeting with architects, urban planners, landscapers and finance experts to figure out small and simple ways to give their downtowns a boost.

Nothing fancy. Just a few things here and there to make the neighborhoods look a little less scummy, a little more friendly.

“We want it to go back to the way it used to be,” said Nancy LaSota, president of the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce, who like most of those who attended the workshop believed the people who live and work in the neighborhood know better than downtown bureaucrats what their area needs.

Some of the ideas were as simple as encouraging merchants along Sherman Way and Reseda Boulevard to open their front doors. As it is, many shopkeepers leave the front of their stores--the side that faces the sidewalk and the street--closed because most customers drive directly to the parking area behind the buildings.

The result is a street that looks deserted even as a bustling trade goes on behind locked front doors. Supporters of the idea figure that opening up the fronts of the stores will create a sense of activity and encourage shoppers to wander from store to store.

To that end, some called for planting trees along the sidewalks and in the street medians to give some shade and create an identifiable area. Some also wanted minor facade improvements--some as simple as a paint job or taking down a gaudy sign.

Keeping trash piles out of the parking lots could be solved by locking the lots at night or by controlling access with a guard gate. But solutions like that cost money, and few merchants are willing to foot the bill.

So participants suggested local community leaders look to governmental sources such as the Community Redevelopment Agency to put some fast cash into the neighborhood. Some suggested the federal government might help out. Or cultural and historical associations might be willing to put some money toward refurbishing older buildings, they noted.

But everyone acknowledged that all the money and all the pretty sidewalks in the world won’t turn an area around unless shoppers are drawn to it. Yet neither neighborhood currently offers much to lure outsiders.

So participants called for creating specialized shopping districts that would capitalize on one or two types of stores, such as the antique shops that line Sherman Way in Canoga Park. Someone suggested retail outlet stores for the larger storefronts in Reseda.

But ideas are easy. Seeing them through is tougher.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in the past to draw up visions of tree-lined streets brimming with espresso bars and trendy boutiques. More often than not, though, the plans collect dust on a shelf as the neighborhoods fill up with pawn shops instead of coffee shops, and weeds sprout instead of jacarandas.

Gwendolyn Pentecost, a consultant who helped spruce up downtown Burbank and Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade, said the potential for failure in Canoga Park and Reseda is great unless property owners, merchants and community leaders cooperate to execute the plans.

“When all the experts go away you have to be able to do it by yourself,” Pentecost said. “All the plans in the world do no good if you walk away and there is no one to put them in place.”

Historically, there has been little cooperation in Reseda. Many of the tumble-down buildings are owned by absentee landlords who care little about upkeep. An oft-repeated story relates the remarks of a landlord who was not interested in sprucing up his building because he said he made more money, in tax write-offs, if he lost money.

“The level of apathy is beyond description,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Stephanie Tisdale, who patrols Reseda as a senior lead officer.

Getting merchants together is complicated by the fact that in Reseda alone there are 27 ethnic groups speaking 67 dialects. But almost everyone at the weekend workshops was white.

Even among those who agree the neighborhoods need attention, there is disagreement over how best to proceed. For instance, as Tisdale led a group through Reseda, she stopped at a sidewalk bench erected in some past effort to put a shine on the neighborhood.

“From a police standpoint, we’d like these not to be here,” Tisdale said. “Who do you think sleeps here at night and hangs out here all day?”

Planner Jane Blumenfeld responded: “There are ways to do this right.”

“OK, great,” Tisdale said, shrugging her shoulders in disbelief.

But in dozens of exchanges like the one between Blumenfeld and Tisdale there emerged a sense that maybe this time things will be different, that maybe this time some of the ideas will work and that maybe this will be the first time in a long time that the neighborhoods change for the better.

Jeff Brain, a Sherman Oaks real estate broker who is trying to remedy less severe problems on Ventura Boulevard, was heartened by the cooperation he saw. It’s unlikely this will turn central Canoga Park into a hip spot like Old Town Pasadena, but it was, as Chick said, a first step.

“Small steps lead to big steps,” Brain said.