Sidewalk Sale Launches Revitalization Effort

Red balloons floated over storefronts Friday as the merchants on Inglewood’s Market Street launched a four-day sidewalk sale that is the beginning of their efforts to revitalize a deteriorating downtown whose vacancy rate hovers at 60%.

“We’re going to make a change, believe me,” said James Roberson, executive director of Main Street Inglewood, which was formed in 1995 to improve the downtown section.

Downtown was the commercial hub of the South Bay in the 1950s and 1960s until shopping malls sprang up in Torrance and Culver City. The city recently signed a tentative agreement with K & L International Partners to build a $24-million complex that would house a 12-screen movie theater, retail establishments and a fast-food court at one end of Market Street. But the agreement has been on hold since the City Council in late January deadlocked about granting a $5-million subsidy to the partners.

Meanwhile, Market Street will be spiffed up, with the city repairing and painting dilapidated planters and cleaning the sidewalks, Roberson said.