Bumper Harvest : Business Owners Hope New Farmers’ Market Revives Quake-Damaged Simi Area

This city began nursing its blighted Tapo Street business corridor back to health Wednesday, one strawberry at a time.

City officials helped open a farmers’ market in a vacant lot on Tapo Street, banking on hopes that weekly fresh fruit and vegetable sales will draw shoppers back to the quake-shaken shopping district.

And if the long lines of avid flower sniffers and tomato pinchers seen Wednesday are any indication, the plan could work.

“I think it might help the area a little bit,” said Edith Henderson, who used to drive all the way to the Thousand Oaks farmers’ market for fresh produce.

“I think it’s great . . . I’m thrilled it’s here,” she said, cradling a hand-picked $3 bouquet of snapdragons, primrose and daisies that she said would have cost more than twice that in stores.

Businesses have steadily dropped out of the Tapo Street corridor since the Northridge earthquake battered them two years ago. Some--like the Pic ‘N’ Save and Sears Outlet stores--were destroyed.

Others staggered under repair costs.

Still others failed outright when the loss of neighboring businesses all but killed foot traffic, accelerating the district’s downward spiral.

The Pic ‘N’ Save lot remains vacant and workers this week finally cleared debris out of the shattered and fire-gutted Sears Outlet building.

But city officials expect they will have to take the building’s owners to court for a June 3 trial to force them to demolish the walls and concrete slab and make the site more attractive to buyers.

In addition to clearing out the blight, city officials are pushing Tapo Street property owners to jump-start their neighborhood with new landscaping, parking lots and signs.

But some Tapo Street merchants were skeptical that the new weekly farmers’ market alone--bracketed by the weed-choked Pic ‘N’ Save lot, the ruined Sears Outlet building and the disused hulk of Nappy’s restaurant--would attract enough foot traffic to reopen vacant stores.

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“The area’s still struggling, there’s no doubt about it. . . . People think we’re either moved or closed,” said Marshall Shrago, owner of Holiday Hardware, which he said suffered a 20% drop in business after a flurry of post-earthquake repair sales. “That’s the image that you have to overcome.”

Tapo Street also still suffers because it has no offramp from the Simi Valley Freeway, he said. To be any help, the farmers’ market will have to move across the street, closer to the open businesses on the east side of Tapo, Shrago said.

But others have faith that the market will help.

“I think it’s an excellent first step, if the merchants take advantage of the draw of people,” said Judy Shuman, co-owner of 29-year-old Whirl-Mor Appliances.

As more than 100 people strolled around the market Wednesday buying everything from goose eggs and olives to hydroponic tomatoes and organically grown strawberries, Shuman’s staff handed out fliers advertising her store.

Shuman said she has been urging other Tapo Street merchants to offer Wednesday evening specials that might grab farmers’ market shoppers by the purse strings and bring them back to the area.

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And she got the idea Wednesday evening to get plastic shopping bags bearing the name of her business to hand out free next week to produce customers.

But Tapo Street will have to fight to lure shoppers away from massive malls and mega-retailers like Costco and Kmart and back to the longtime family owned Tapo Street businesses, she said.

“I don’t think people realize that we are basically the oldest merchants in Simi--many of the businesses have not changed hands since they opened,” she said.

“These are stores that are staffed by people that have been there for years and years and years,” she said.

“These are our careers. These are our lives. These are businesses that are going to be passed down to our children.”

FYI

Simi Valley farmers’ market will be held Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on the west side of Tapo Street between Cochran Street and Los Angeles Avenue.