Plans Revealed for Commerce Avenue

As a child growing up in Tujunga, Barbara Hughes watched the residents of her hometown frequent shoe repair shops, banks, barber shops and hardware stores along Commerce Avenue.

The avenue once served as a major business district. Today, many of its stores are boarded up or vacant, with crime a lingering problem.

The deterioration is “a sad thing,” Hughes said. “Commerce [Avenue] has practically dried up. . . . When I was a kid, you used to be able to go to Commerce and take care of everything you needed.”

Hoping to breathe more economic life into the now-struggling avenue, the Sunland-Tujunga Chamber of Commerce will apply by Wednesday for a $5,000 grant that could help revitalize the district, said Hughes, president of the chamber.

The grant money--offered by the city’s Operation Clean Sweep, a Board of Public Works program that removes graffiti and other blight from city streets--would be used to pay for banners, benches and new landscaping, Hughes said.

Delphia Jones, Operation Clean Sweep director, said the city has $350,000 in grants to distribute for improvement projects that range from murals to playground refurbishment. Terms of the grants require would-be recipients to match money they receive with equivalent funds or labor.

If the proposed revitalization gets underway, the Sunland-Tujunga Chamber of Commerce would push for stores that sell arts and crafts and antiques to line Commerce Avenue along with a combination bookstore and coffeehouse, Hughes said.