Face Lift to Raze Shops at Harbor

Los Angeles port authorities on Tuesday unveiled a short-term plan to revitalize the long-neglected seaside Ports O’ Call Village tourist attraction by razing up to 10 buildings to create “windows to the water.”

The plan calls for a park and amphitheater, and installation of a pedestrian bridge linking the eclectic cluster of shops and restaurants with downtown San Pedro.

The project would take six months to complete. But the Port of Los Angeles expects to have at least two buildings at the 20-acre village’s southern end replaced by a picnic area in time for the annual Lobster Festival, scheduled for the first weekend of October.

The plan addresses a question that has nagged community leaders, including San Pedro resident and City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, for years: What good is a waterfront attraction if you can’t see the water?

“We’re going to give a large section of the waterfront back to the people of Los Angeles,” Hahn said. “But it’s only a first step to show we are serious about revitalizing the entire area, including the community of San Pedro.”

The changes cannot come soon enough for some merchants at the 39-year-old melange of mostly rundown Old English, New England and Spanish-style buildings connected by an uneven, narrow red brick walkway.

A decade ago, 98% of the storefronts and restaurants were occupied. Now, businesses fill 43 of 71 available units, many of them blemished by chipped paint, termite infestation and boarded-up windows.

Staring out at the empty parking lot in front of her bakery and remembering better days, Ingrid Whalen sighed, “I hope they hurry up and do something. I’m barely hanging on. The few stragglers I get on weekends don’t pay the rent.”

But Jayme Wilson, a village business leader who has been working with port authorities to revamp the village, said, “I just hope people’s expectations aren’t too high. Everyone needs to understand that this is not the solution to Ports O’ Call’s problems. It’s only a start.”

The village opened in 1962 on the west bank of the main channel at Los Angeles Harbor. Previously, it had been a mooring area for tugboats and fishing boats, and a lumber storage yard.

The area’s deterioration began during the economic slowdown in the 1980s. It took a further hit with the closing of the Marineland amusement park in 1987 in nearby Rancho Palos Verdes.

Then came new competition from Universal Studios, the major expansions at Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland, and outdoor shopping areas such as Old Town Pasadena and the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

In 1997, the city sued to nullify its pact with the village’s managerial firm, Specialty Restaurants Corp. of Anaheim, on grounds that the company had failed to maintain the premises and keep them safe and clean.

Two years later, the firm handed the lease back to the Port of Los Angeles. In February, the port voted to allow the Dallas-based company Trammell Crow to oversee a major 45-acre redevelopment project, which would include Ports O’ Call Village.

Trammell Crow had until Sept. 6 to draft a long-term plan for the village. But it recently disappointed port authorities by saying it needed two more years to study the project’s economic prospects. Dan Niemann, senior vice president for Trammell Crow, declined to say whether the company will bow out of the project or pursue it.

“We’re not sure what the situation is,” he said. “We’re not sure where we are in it, to tell the truth.”

Village merchants are running out of patience.

“At least 15 times a week, customers ask, ‘Oh my god, what happened to Ports O’ Call?’ ” said Anita Karpeles, owner of a tobacco shop in one of the seediest corners of the village. “I give them a two-minute explanation that ends with the phrase, ‘Things change.’ ”

In a Tuesday morning meeting with about two dozen village merchants, Bruce Seaton, chief operating officer for the Port of Los Angeles, conceded, “We know you are hurting because it’s not as busy as it should be.”

“We do not as yet have a master plan, or even a vision for something grandiose,” he said. “But while we work to develop a long-term plan, we’re going to tear down some old buildings and open up some windows to the water.”

As he spoke, a demolition team hired by the city was gutting a village building formerly known as Whiskey Joe’s Restaurant. The dilapidated wood-framed structure, rimmed by tall weeds, will be the first to get knocked down.

Passerby John Kildeby could not contain his surprise, nor his skepticism, about the activity.

“Don’t tell me they’re actually going to do something here!” he said. “Well, tearing down a few buildings isn’t going to make a difference. Business has been diving for years.”

Gary Owen, owner of McCloud’s Ringworks, a jewelry store that opened 33 years ago at the village’s eerily lonely southern end, would not argue with that.

“The port’s plan displays a pathetic lack of imagination,” said Owen, who is among the few village business owners who do not support the port’s interim plan. “It’s the lowest common denominator: If you can’t think of anything else, destroy it.”

But Keith Gurney of RRM Design Group, which was hired by the city to help develop plans for the waterfront, said that view misses the point.

“This is simply a response to the community’s desire that something be done immediately to clean up the place and open vistas to the waterfront,” he said. “It does not preclude a larger redevelopment plan later, which will come when the economy is right for it.”

Gurney will make a public presentation of the plan during a meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Liberty Hill Plaza in downtown San Pedro.

In the meantime, Wilson is trying to come up with a snazzy advertising campaign to promote the village’s new look.

“I don’t have the buzzwords yet,” he said. “But it will be something like, ‘Come on out to the Los Angeles waterfront. It’s a nice place to dine, shop and watch the ships cruise by.’ ”