Public Places : Reinventing Main Street

Culver City, the little city that bills itself as “the Heart of Screenland,” has no movie theaters. The marquee on the shuttered Culver Theater is a relic of the studio glory days--of MGM, Selznick and Hal Roach Studios before the downtown stores moved away to shopping centers.

Even City Hall almost moved out before a strategic decision was made to rebuild in the center of the city.

Now this town of 40,000 that created Atlanta for “Gone With the Wind” and Kansas for “The Wizard of Oz” has reinvented its downtown.

Funded by $7 million in redevelopment funds, the center of this small town in the big city has a brand new streetscape. Extra-wide sidewalks with period street lights and double rows of jacaranda trees form a grand promenade.

The big X where Culver and Washington boulevards meet has been realigned to create a park. Main Street, a collection of small shops left behind by time, has had a face lift.

A parking lot becomes a farmers market on Tuesday afternoons and the restored 1907 Ivy Substation has become an anchor for theater and music at the eastern end of the district.

Nearby, the city’s industrial district is becoming an incubator for design and technology in innovative buildings. In what is still a movie-making town, Sony Pictures Entertainment has revamped its period buildings and back-lot sets and completed a major new building on Washington Boulevard.

Mark Winogrond, director of community development since 1992 and a city planner by training, talked with Jane Spiller about Culver City’s new downtown.

Question: How did Culver City reinvent itself?

Answer: The most exciting thing to me is that this was not the city staff’s project. In 1991, about 140 people came to a three-day community design [workshop] to set the direction for revitalizing downtown.

There were many controversies. The goal was to go through a group process and acknowledge that the goals were the same--to make downtown blossom, create a town center that was beautiful to walk and shop and eat in, to restore some historic buildings and bring some entertainment activities downtown.

Research on livable communities shows people want a town center. Culver City once had that, but as the office and retail markets grew, downtown played a smaller and smaller role. That was the reason for building the new city hall downtown.

People wanted a sidewalk wide enough for cafes and where you could stroll under flowering canopy trees and have seating areas and room for public art. The community knew we wouldn’t get restaurants if we imposed parking requirements in older buildings, so the redevelopment agency created parking and other incentives. We have a sidewalk cafe ordinance and pay 60% of the cost of storefront improvements.

Q: Why was Culver City able to invest so much in its downtown when many towns cannot?

A: The redevelopment agency is the essential component of why Culver City is different from many other towns struggling to eliminate blight. In a nutshell, redevelopment is based on tax increment financing. You establish a project in an area that is run-down. A certain amount of property taxes is being generated from that area. You do some good stuff and fix up the area, the area improves, the property taxes go up and the growth in taxes goes to further improve the area.

There’s been tremendous growth in property tax in the three Culver City redevelopment areas--sufficient to generate a substantial amount of money for the improvements.

In some towns the R word [redevelopment] is a dirty word. In Culver City they just hung banners in the street to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the agency. It’s because the redevelopment tool has been used sensitively, and the community has seen the results.

Q: The new streetscape is impressive but there aren’t many people there. Did Culver City make a conscious decision not to become a Third Street Promenade [as in Santa Monica]?

A: Yes. But that’s a big debate in the community. There is not enough activity to support some kinds of stores that the community would like. The necessary step to be a Third Street Promenade would be either much more intensive commercial development or multiplex movie theaters, and that would forever alter the nature of the little American downtown that was the shared vision of the community process.

Public Places columnist Jane Spiller welcomes suggestions and news about public places. Contact her c/o Next L.A. or by e-mail at jane.spiller@latimes.com