Angels Flight Gives Lift to Reputation of Small Contractor

For Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, the hoopla surrounding the resurrection last month of Angels Flight, downtown Los Angeles’ beloved little funicular railway, was also a celebration of the biggest thing her construction company has ever done.

Diaz Aszkenazy’s San Fernando-based firm, Pueblo Contracting Services, is neither large nor well-known in the tradition-bound construction industry. But Pueblo was selected to be general contractor for the $4.1-million Angels Flight project, and it finished the complicated reconstruction and restoration on time and within budget.

You might call Pueblo the little company that could.

“Angels Flight is unique and it offered us the chance to get some name recognition and an opportunity to show people who Pueblo is and what Pueblo can do,” Diaz Aszkenazy said, noting that Pueblo is beginning an even bigger project with the $5.4-million renovation of the Bullocks Wilshire department store interior for the Southwestern University School of Law library.

When the Community Redevelopment Agency made good on its 27-year-old promise and Angels Flight began its two-car sashay up and down Bunker Hill on Feb. 24, customers stood in line for as long as four hours to pay a quarter for the 60-second ride (compared with a nickel when the railway was dismantled in 1969 to make way for development).

“It’s really being received very, very warmly,” Diaz Aszkenazy said of the funicular, which began operating in 1901. (A funicular is a railway built on a hill with two cars attached to a single cable so that the weight of the car heading down counterbalances the weight of the car heading up, cutting the need for power.)

Diaz Aszkenazy’s romance with the rails began in February 1995, when Pueblo’s low bid won it the Angels Flight contract. The job involved supervising 45 subcontractors at several sites and employed more modern technology than is usual in a renovation, Diaz Aszkenazy said. Pueblo is still putting the finishing touches on the project, which should be wrapped up by the end of the week.

The head of the nonprofit organization that now owns and operates the railway praised Pueblo and the collaborative atmosphere that allowed the work to proceed quickly. “This is a company that’s done a fabulous job on this project,” said John H. Welborne, president of the Angels Flight Railway Foundation.

The revived Angels Flight is a combination of the authentic--about 90% of the historic material was retained--and the ersatz.

Diaz Aszkenazy said technology makes her firm more efficient and that small companies need that to compete. Pueblo’s revenue last year hit $7 million, and she hopes to top $9 million in 1996.

Also key is a mentoring relationship with Keller Construction, a much larger and more experienced firm. Pueblo is a joint venture between Keller and Trooper Enterprises, a construction company founded in 1985 and primarily owned by Diaz Aszkenazy, with a smaller stake held by her husband, Severyn Aszkenazy.

Trooper is the managing partner and identifies projects, administers the paperwork and supervises construction. The joint venture allowed an immediate boost in bonding capacity, which can be a problem for small contractors, and gave Diaz Aszkenazy and her 15 employees access to expertise and contacts.

It also lent an extra bit of legitimacy. “Here I am a woman in a nontraditional field. I would show up at projects and they would think I was a designer,” she said.

But Diaz Aszkenazy bristles at any suggestion that the company is anything but her own. Severyn Aszkenazy, a former firefighter, works in the company, but Diaz Aszkenazy is the one with the business degree from Loyola Marymount University.

“That’s something you always face if you’re a husband-and-wife team,” she said.

Diaz Aszkenazy believes strongly in the benefits of affirmative action, saying, “It helped me in ways I can’t quite put my finger on, but I know they’re there.

“People say, ‘Did it help to get this job because you’re a minority?’ What they’re really asking is, ‘Did somebody give you that job because of a quota?’ and I’m here to say no. I got the job because I came in with the best price or the best idea,” she said.

Trooper Enterprises has built affordable housing for seniors and first-time home buyers in San Fernando, and renovated Westside hotel interiors, among other things. Pueblo’s projects have included the $4-million renovation of the office tower at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood and building a $1.2-million classroom wing at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, a Los Angeles Unified School District charter school in Pacoima.