Revival for Crenshaw Project?
Frustrated by repeated efforts to rebuild a 23-acre shopping center in the Crenshaw district, Los Angeles city officials are mulling over a plan for a mix of commercial space and private residences for the first time in the project’s troubled 15-year history.
Observers say the new plan for Santa Barbara Plaza, which would replace the rundown 1940s-era buildings with 140 single-family homes, 180 senior housing units and 140,000 square feet of retail space, is more economically feasible than a retail-only project in an area that has had difficulty attracting name-brand retailers. The sale of the homes would offset some of the developer’s costs and reduce the amount of city redevelopment funds needed.
City officials say they are intrigued by the plan, but caution that they still must come up with about $35 million in public funds before the developer, Los Angeles-based Capital Vision Equities, will buy the land and begin work on the $100-million project. For the retail-only plan, the firm had asked for $44 million in public assistance.
The proposal follows a trend of mixed-use developments that have been cropping up across the Southland, including the trendy Paseo Colorado complex that opened last fall in Pasadena and others planned in Hollywood, Burbank and Long Beach. Such projects, which feature apartments stacked on top of restaurants and retailing outlets, are generally aimed at suburbanites weary of driving a car to buy a newspaper or a meal.
For Santa Barbara Plaza, however, developers had to rethink the mixed-use concept. The plan does not strive for a dense, “urban” feel and it targets families looking to purchase a home rather than single people interested in renting.
“We think it’s cutting edge,” said real estate consultant Larry Kosmont. “Most people think of mixed-use as a stacked product, but the key concept behind mixed-use is adjacency and the concept planning.”
Community reaction to the new proposal has been mixed, with some plaza tenants, who have watched their buildings fall apart and businesses deteriorate since the mid-1980s, complaining that the latest shift in the project is just another delay in a seemingly unending process.
“We’re back at square one,” said Kwame Antwih, head of the plaza’s tenant association and an African-clothing retailer.
In the last decade, the once-vibrant shopping center near Martin Luther King Jr. and Crenshaw boulevards was designated for city redevelopment funds and targeted by several developers, one of them Earvin “Magic” Johnson. The former basketball star’s development firm tried to revitalize the plaza after installing the successful Magic Johnson Theatres in 1995 at the struggling Baldwin Hills mall across the street. But most observers agree Johnson’s foray into Santa Barbara Plaza failed because of a lack of public funding and political support.
Last year, the city entered into exclusive negotiations with Capital Vision. Plaza tenants say they have been interviewed at length by the firm’s agents, but remain skeptical that Capital Vision will be more successful than Johnson’s company.
Part of what has held up the development for so long is the high cost of acquiring the site, which has 37 property owners. Chris Hammond, the firm’s president, said he already has agreements with all but a handful of owners.
Redevelopment officials say Hammond is the first developer to have negotiated successfully with so many of the landlords. They also cite Capital Vision’s record in the area. The firm turned an obsolete dairy-processing plant nearby into a bustling shopping strip that includes a Home Depot, Food4- Less, Starbucks and McDonald’s.
The Southland’s tight housing market and high demand for moderately priced single-family houses make the site attractive for the kinds of homes Hammond is proposing to build. “We’re trying to do something that currently doesn’t exist in the community,” Hammond said, referring to the neighborhood’s prevalent high-density rental housing.
The homes also would help the project as a whole, Hammond said, because it would anchor the retail portion by providing a “built-in audience for things like bookstores and restaurants.”
Under the plan, nine acres of residences would wrap around a horseshoe-shaped commercial cluster looking out onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The design includes walkways that would give residents easy access to the stores in Santa Barbara Plaza and the Baldwin Hills mall, which lies just east of the plaza.
The homes would be two- and three-bedroom detached three-story townhouses with about 1,500 square feet of living space, priced from $250,000 to $300,000, according to Capital Vision.
Despite assurances that this round would be different from the last, many tenants say they won’t believe in change until they see it.
“They had us in limbo, and now we’re in limbo again,” said Corinthian Uqdah, who owns two hair salons in the plaza. “There’s nothing going on but the deterioration of this area and everybody waiting.”
Olive Walker, who owns a women’s clothing shop, says she did not sell a single item during the holiday season and pays her bills by working nights as a private nurse.
She would like to move to a better location but cannot afford to pay higher rent. The $200,000 worth of inventory she has accumulated over the years prevents her from simply closing up shop. “I don’t want to give up something so valuable that I paid for,” she said.
Scores of merchants at the plaza went out of business in the last decade because they believed redevelopment was around the corner and failed to make long-term business plans, said Antwih, the head of the tenants’ group.
Some, such as clothing retailer Donna Rose, believe the delay is the result of something more than simple economics. “It’s the same as if they’re trying to wait until all the people here are all gone, or they’re trying to force us out or something, and then they won’t have anything to do but rebuild,” Rose said.
City officials say they are sympathetic to the tenants’ plight and deny that the project has been delayed on purpose.
“This has been a really awful event in the city’s history,” Jerry Scharlin of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency said last month at a community meeting about the project. “It isn’t intentional to hurt people,” he said.
He said the agency, the developer and city leaders are determined to end the lengthy gridlock. “Maybe I’m being Pollyannaish, but I feel there is a real desire and commitment by the city to find a solution,” Scharlin said.
Capital Vision will begin acquiring properties this spring if an agreement with the city can be reached.
