Alhambra Banks on Charming Them

After years of cajoling, begging, and even paying businesses to move to Main Street, Alhambra, the city’s prime thoroughfare is seeing something it’s been missing for 25 years: people.

People are waiting half an hour on Friday nights for a barbecued rib dinner. They stand in line for coffee and listen to free music at a sidewalk stage outside at Rick’s burger joint. Weary professionals stop at the Havana House for a cigar after work.

With about 40 new businesses, $25 million in public investment, and the impending opening of a 14-screen movie theater, Alhambra has caught the tail of a national trend, which has shoppers and diners flocking back to their hometown downtowns.

But call Main Street trendy or upscale, and city officials and residents alike shudder.

“We don’t want to be another Old Pasadena,” said City Manager Julio Fuentes, referring to the bars, restaurants and shops that draw surging crowds to a historic swath of Colorado Boulevard.

But by complementing, instead of competing with, nearby Old Pasadena, Main Street Alhambra appears to be in step with other commercial areas that form informal pairings, such as Studio City and Encino, Burbank and Glendale.

“These centers can duplicate themselves every two, three miles, given the market density,” said Larry Kosmot, a Los Angeles-based real estate consultant. “There’s a localization of habits. People are saying, ‘I’m staying here.’ ”

And if they stay in Alhambra, they find a decent meal and a nice evening stroll.

“We don’t want to be too hip. That’s not Alhambra,” said Councilman Paul Talbot. “It sounds a little hokey, but this is a place where you are going to feel comfortable with your family.”

That’s why the City Council approved a new martini bar, but said no to cheap drinks and happy hours.

The council wants crowds of youthful moviegoers, but vetoed a video arcade.

No Cover Charge

Live music turns many a diner into a dancer at the Cuban Bistro restaurant, but Main Street has no “cover charge” establishments.

It turns out that Main Street, Alhambra, circa 2002, is much like Main Street, Alhambra, circa 1955--no themed gimmicks, no paseos or promenades, not much in the way of historic architecture.

The nearly mile-long stretch of this mainstream Main Street is proud to play host to a Ross Dress for Less. It offers a $19 Cajun blackened fish entree on one block and a $1.99 fish taco around the corner. There are $3.05 grande lattes at Starbucks and a $2.99 Grand-Slam breakfast at Denny’s.

That Ross Dress for Less is “outperforming expectations,” as a spokeswoman put it, but it’s too early to call Main Street a hands-down success. It still needs more people.

“We’re giving it another year,” said Kim Phan, owner of the Perfume Station. Phan needs to clear $20,000 a month in sales to sustain the business. “So far there are a lot of restaurants, but we are not sure how we fit in yet.”

The Alhambra “Oh My Sole Store,” is doing the most poorly of the company’s 10 shops, including one in Old Pasadena. “To be honest with you, it’s not really successful,” said Young Lee, a corporate manager of the shoe chain.

Lee, Phan and others have pegged their futures to the November opening of the centerpiece “Renaissance Plaza,” a theater complex capable of seating about 9,000 moviegoers over a single weekend--people they hope will turn into shoppers.

The plaza itself will be an eye-catcher for Alhambra, a city of 86,000 where the median household income is about $39,000 a year, a bit less than the Los Angeles County median of about $42,000. The plaza at the busy intersection of Garfield Boulevard and Main will feature a computer-operated fountain where streaming water will pulsate to lights and music, creating a gathering place with merchant kiosks, benches and a row of eateries.

“We really want to create a small-town feel, not glitz and glamour,” said Fuentes. After all, city officials, who pumped $1.2 million into the project, didn’t want to tamper with Alhambra’s reputation as a nice-place-to-live, freeway-close suburb.

The face of Main Street that is emerging after an eight-year effort to jump-start Alhambra’s long-dormant redevelopment zone, grew from an idea first approved a generation ago. At that time, 1972, modern malls had siphoned off enough business to warrant an official declaration of blighted conditions around a stretch of Main Street that included the civic center.

Councilman Talmage Burke, 84, recalls the Main Street of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s as a premier shopping district in the San Gabriel Valley.

“My mother used to say she couldn’t think of another city that has so many shoe stores,” Burke said. “People used to come to Alhambra because the styles and clothing options were great.”

Fuentes, with the blessing of the City Council, aggressively set the pace for revival. Members of the city’s staff have acted much like real estate brokers, scouting out vacant, run-down or under-used sites for new businesses that fit their vision for Main Street.

The city then brings property owners and business owners together to work out lease agreements. The city pays to relocate the old businesses. Since 1995, the city has given nearly $14 million in grants to lure businesses to Main Street.

Rents Tripled

When the city started its campaign, officials said, Main Street rents were about 50 cents a square foot. They have since tripled.

Only twice has the city used its powerful redevelopment tool, eminent domain, to condemn a property and force the owner to sell at market value.

However, the threat of condemnation can be a strong negotiating tool to reach lease agreements. Some business owners bitterly complain about what they call high-pressure tactics.

Dr. David Quon, who for 14 years has run a cosmetic surgery center out of a defunct bank building, said that the city has prevented him from expanding his business because redevelopment plans call for a major retail center on his site.

When his sister, also a doctor, applied for a business license in 1997 to join her brother’s practice, it was denied because, a city document said, officials did not want an “intensification of medical use on-site, not approved by the Redevelopment Agency.” Three other property owners said prospective tenants had also been denied licenses because their businesses did not fit into the city’s plan.

Quon said his surgery center and the clients he brings are a plus for the new Main Street, a district he helped to prop up during the down years. But now the city wants to talk about buying his land. “I don’t want to lose this prime property,” Quon said. “What am I going to do? If I move, my business will suffer. I don’t have all the money, all the attorneys to fight like they do.”

What Alhambra officials point to as one of their redevelopment success stories--a Juice It Up and two small shops--represents what one family said is the loss of their retirement investment.

Bryan Kan said his father, who ran a small restaurant supply business, sued the city during condemnation proceedings, eventually settling on a $600,000 price for his building. But the lump sum was a disappointing end to ownership of a property he had bought to generate monthly income during retirement.

“Normally, you use eminent domain for a public use, but not to bring in a juice stand,” said Kan.

But that’s exactly what the city wants on Main Street. More than 10 years ago, the council approved a zoning ordinance prohibiting new office uses on the ground floor of Main Street buildings, which are reserved for retail, entertainment or restaurant uses.

“Offices hurt the retail district on the ground floors,” said Michael Martin, director of the city’s Development Services Department. “If we had no control, Main Street would be a hodge-podge of office uses, nail salons and Internet gaming houses.”

Instead, a new generation of restaurants has come to Main Street, among them Leo Prats’ Cuban Bistro in 2001.

“I didn’t even know where Alhambra was,” said Prats, a partner in the popular Versailles restaurants elsewhere in Southern California. His partner said no.

But after studying the demographics of Alhambra and nearby South Pasadena, San Marino and Monterey Park, Prats decided to take the risk, using about $500,000 of his money and a $350,000 city grant.

One of his loyal customers is Kay Cardenas, 50, an 18-year Alhambra resident.

“It’s been a long time in coming, but we finally have a place for the birthdays, the weekends,” she said one Saturday night, listening to live salsa music in the bar with her two adult children and brother.

“It’s Alhambra, you know? The ambience is more family,” she said. “This isn’t the kind of bar where people are going to pick up on you.”