WOODLAND HILLS : Car Dealer Has Faith in Revival of Boulevard

Auto dealer Steve Shuken was tired of the run-down, vacant gas station next to his business, so he decided to do something about it: He bought the property and tore the station down.

Shuken used the land to expand his Ford dealership--not so much as a $1.3-million business venture, he said--but to show his faith that Ventura Boulevard is on the rebound.

“We wanted to make a statement about what businesses could do on Ventura Boulevard,” he said.

He planted palm trees to spruce up the area, he said, hoping to inspire other business people along the boulevard, who are discouraged over encroaching blight.

“It’s going to take time, but I think we’re off on the right foot,” said Robert J. Gross, vice president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization.

Shuken, whose dealership is at Canoga Avenue and Ventura Boulevard, said he was encouraged by the success of the new Ralphs shopping center at Topanga Canyon Boulevard. That area, he said, has been transformed from a seedy strip mall to a community gathering place.

“I definitely see increased traffic,” he said. “You see it if you go by at 11 o’clock at night: People are out.”

Meanwhile, Shuken said, revitalization of his corner is being stymied by the presence of a vacant ice cream parlor that closed several years ago. It is now boarded up, and has become the target of graffiti vandals.

The building is owned, Shuken said, by a foreign bank, “someone who does not have their heart and soul in this community.”

Community volunteers cut weeds and painted the outside of the former ice cream parlor. And this made it look a little better, said Judith Hirshberg, a deputy to Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude. But there is nothing the city can do, she said.

“As long as the building is structurally sound, Building and Safety will not take it down,” she said.