Neighbors Breathe Easier as MTA Crews Depart

For more than five years, the merchants of Lankershim Boulevard endured noise, dirt and financial hardship as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority dug the final leg of the Red Line subway in the San Fernando Valley.

Today, most of the above-ground work is finished, and for most, business is improving--slowly.

“It’s been hell, years of hell,” said Bob Bruncati, owner of Metro Ford at 5500 Lankershim Blvd., directly across from the future station at Chandler Boulevard. Bruncati said the dealership’s profits have slid 25% annually since construction started in 1993.

In that year, Metro Ford was selling around 270 to 280 cars a month, he said. But then construction of the Red Line commenced, bringing giant cranes, scaffolding and portable toilets to the neighborhood. The MTA also frequently closed down two and three lanes of the thoroughfare, and sometimes closed the entire street.

Business didn’t cease, but predictably, traffic fell.

“My profits kept sliding and sliding,” Bruncati said. “It was an unreasonable disruption.”

Still, the dealership is now recovering.

“As soon as the street was completed, we started experiencing a 15% increase, then a 20% increase, then 30%,” Bruncati said.

In May, for example, Metro Ford sold 315 new and used cars, compared to 237 vehicles in the same month in 1998.

Toyota of North Hollywood fared somewhat better financially during this time, but it too has suffered.

“It affected us hugely,” said Chris Ashworth, vice president and general manager of the dealership at 4606 Lankershim Blvd. The building has floor cracks that Ashworth says resulted from the burrowing.

The dealership invested more heavily in advertising and hired more aggressive sales managers in order to counteract the business slowdown, Ashworth said. Nevertheless, the construction put a strain on its 240 employees.

“Since they [MTA] cut off all parking meters on Lankershim, our employees have had to park three to four blocks away,” Ashworth said.

But Toyota of North Hollywood has endured. Not so its sister enterprise, Mazda of North Hollywood. It folded in April 1996 after almost four years.

Potential car buyers found it hard to gain access after construction crews erected a fence between the sidewalk and the dealership. And when the crews parked a crane in front, it was a death blow.

“It had no chance once construction started,” said Eugene Leydiker, associate director of business and legal affairs with Hankey Investment Co., a Los Angeles-based auto dealership group that owned Mazda of North Hollywood.

The closure occurred at a time when Mazda overall was struggling in the U.S. market. The company blames the closure on the MTA, however, and is suing the transit agency to recoup its losses.

Today, business is picking up at Le Petit Chateau, a French restaurant at Lankershim and Hortense Street, but the restaurant is trying to recover from the slowdown that began with the construction.

As with the Mazda dealership, a crane in front made it tough for customers to come in and out. In addition, the restaurant was barely visible, according to owner Andrew Higgs.

“You put a construction crane and concrete barriers all around and people don’t even see us,” Higgs said. “We were on a pretty strong growth path that stopped immediately after they moved in.”

Higgs estimates that the chaos on the street cost him $300,000 in lost profits during the construction period, although the 35-year-old business, well known to locals, was never unprofitable.

“The day they left, it’s been up $900 a day and it’s stayed there,” Higgs said. “We’re recovering, but we’re not there yet.”

All the merchants report a never-ceasing hardship to daily life: grime, grime, and more grime.

Since construction started, Metro Ford has been washing its fleet in the morning, only to see the cars dirty again by midday.

“By noontime, there’s a 16th of an inch of sand in the cracks of the cars,” Bruncati said.

Star Irvine, owner of Eagle’s Newsstand Cafe at 5231 Lankershim Blvd., said she had to rebuild an air conditioner because of perpetual clogging. She’s also become well acquainted with sponges and towels.

“I’ve literally had to clean table tops off every 25 minutes for the last three to five years,” Irvine said.

Joe Knight, vice president and general manager of Sav On Rent-A-Car at Chandler and Lankershim boulevards, said his site is constantly filthy.

“I’m ready to repaint and clean up, but how can you paint when you’ve had dirt blowing across the street for months?” Knight said.

(The dirt may be a turnoff to car rental customers, but Sav On Rent-A-Car’s soft-drink vending machine proved to be a cash generator. Knight estimates that 20 to 25 construction workers a day trekked into the office seeking liquid refreshment at 50 cents a pop.)

Some merchants have had dicey moments. Irvine, for example, said Eagle’s Newsstand Cafe wouldn’t have survived were it not for her second career as a television camera operator.

In 1995, as cafe profits slumped, Irvine was forced to close a full-sized magazine stand she’d opened 18 months before, a $25,000 investment.

“After the MTA came, no one could get to it anymore,” Irvine said.

At least one business, North Hollywood Auto Parts, opted to change its business radically to keep sales advancing: Owner Bob Miller introduced a wholesale auto parts business to counter shrinking retail sales.

“I decided to go with what I can control,” Miller said.

Optometrist Thomas Kutrosky, who has had a high-volume/low-fee practice at 5308 Lankershim Blvd. for 35 years, says he’s lost many patients because of the disruption, although he couldn’t give an exact count.

“We had a real problem with people getting into the office,” Kutrosky said.

He received a letter from a patient informing him that he was never coming back because of the frustration of never finding a parking place.

“It was just too difficult,” Kutrosky said.

If that isn’t enough, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency recently informed him that the city of Los Angeles will be taking part of his building through eminent domain, as part of a plan to widen the street to make way for development. This is a double hardship because Kutrosky lives in an apartment above his practice.

“I survived the earthquake. I survived the MTA. But this is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Kutrosky said.

At present, the optometrist doesn’t know where he’ll go, but he plans to continue his practice.

Kutrosky’s tenant, McKinley’s Shoe Repair, which has experienced a 50% to 60% drop in gross sales during the years of construction, will also have to close when the wrecking ball falls, probably 12 to 18 months from now.

“My plan is to hang in here until they push me out,” said Ernie McKinley, the 75-year-old proprietor of the shoe repair shop.

Also affected will be the L.A. Recording Workshop, a private vocational school that teaches audio engineering. Director Chris Knight has also been informed that his 12,000-square-foot facility will be taken by eminent domain. Exactly when that will happen, Knight doesn’t know, but he’s presuming he will find another property nearby.

“North Hollywood is a wonderful area for us,” he said. So while the subway construction has brought distress to local business, Knight believes the Red Line will ultimately be a plus when it opens in North Hollywood in May 2000. “It will bring in a lot of people,” he said. “It will be wonderful.”