VALLEY PERSPECTIVE : A Cool Way to Build Community

Imagine starting classes at Cal State Northridge last week and, after enduring all those long lines and getting lost a few times, actually having someplace to go afterward, to sit down, relax, have a tall iced drink and trade registration horror stories with fellow students.

Horror stories aside, that’s what a group of Northridge property owners and CSUN professors envision with their plan for a “Northridge Oasis,” a collection of cafes, shops and movie theaters that would turn a nondescript commuter college neighborhood into a bustling college town.

They want the Los Angeles City Council to create a business improvement district along three miles of Reseda Boulevard next to the CSUN campus. Money collected through assessments and corporate sponsorships would go toward fountains, trees and shaded walkways. Such amenities would in turn encourage students to hang around by countering Northridge’s reputation for triple-digit summer temperatures--a reputation returning students experienced firsthand during the recent heat wave.

The district would also sponsor an annual street fair and provide public spaces along the boulevard for other events.

One of the most appealing aspects of this project is its use of the university as a resource. The city hired CSUN to serve as a consultant to the neighboring businesses. Professors in turn put architecture, art and business students to work drafting plans, designing logos and analyzing markets. The project not only gave students hands-on experience but gave business owners and neighboring homeowners a different view of students. Rather than the wide-eyed radicals they’d imagined, they found parents, working adults--and good potential customers.

“It was a win-win for everyone,” said CSUN marketing professor Judith Hennessey, who took a class to Palm Springs to see how to transform an arid desert town into, well, an oasis.

Northridge as Palm Springs? That’s a little hard to imagine. But it’s not hard to imagine a lively commercial district that could take advantage of foot traffic from CSUN’s 27,000 students. Or, for that matter, one that would lure visitors from other parts of the San Fernando Valley.

Neighborhood shopping districts provide a sense of place that chain stores and malls just can’t match. And such a district next to a college campus can offer even more by providing visibility for and access to art exhibits and music, dance and drama performances and sports events. CSUN hosts more cultural events than any other institution in the Valley, but does not now attract the audiences these performances deserve. A Northridge business improvement district could provide an oasis not just for CSUN students but the rest of the Valley as well. And that, too, would be a win-win for everybody.