On This Stretch, Palm Trees Mean Something

Palm trees on Bristol Street, smack in the middle of Santa Ana? What is this, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills? What’s next, a Gucci store to replace the Bristol Swap Mall?

All right, not to get too carried away with my own metaphor, but there’s the whiff of change in the air and right now it’s coming from the asphalting on Bristol, where the city of Santa Ana is widening the street, putting in a permanent median and planting trees.

That’s done every day in America, but not that often in low-income neighborhoods where many residents speak limited English and don’t have lots of money to spend. That’s why you’ve got to like the look on the street these days.

It’s as if the project itself is saying, “OK, you’re hard-working people. We’re going to give you a better-looking street.”

That, at least, is the opinion I get from several merchants and residents in the area. Art Lopez was standing outside his favorite Bristol Street doughnut shop Thursday morning, watching the street crew.

“I think the city decided to fix a street in the middle of town, instead of where the money is,” he says. “Obviously, it’s going to look nice. When you see it at night and it’s lighted up, it looks great.”

Lopez lives in Santa Ana and runs a custodial business. “This is my ‘hood,” he says. I ask about the palm trees and the Beverly Hills look. “The closest I’ve been to Beverly Hills is South Pasadena,” he says. “This looks similar to that.”

I ask if he feels neighborhood pride because of the beautification. “I think I feel proud of what they’re doing.”

A strip mall on Bristol between Edinger and McFadden is being heavily affected by the construction project. Several merchants I talked to can’t wait for the road work to end, but all think it will be worth it.

Sang Park runs the 45 Minute Foto Studio in the mall. Aside from improving the aesthetics of the area, he thinks the Bristol Street project will have a positive effect on the outlook of the residents in this low- to middle-income neighborhood only 21/2 miles north of South Coast Plaza.

“I’ve been here 41/2 years,” he says. “I never knew about Mexican society and community. I never thought there would be this kind of community in the U.S. Some people here don’t even know where South Coast Plaza is. Instead of going to Costco or Wal-Mart, they go to the swap meet.”

He thinks the beautification project will, in time, bring better opportunities to the neighborhood and expand the horizons of area residents.

Miguel Flores agrees. A longtime neighborhood resident, he raises his palm upward to describe what the street-widening has done to the value of his home. Plus, he likes the look. “It was too ugly before,” he says.

Agreed, says Kyung Lee, who runs the swap meet in the mall. She concedes that the aging storefronts don’t exactly match the new look of the street, but she likes the renovations. Her only problem, as she stood on the sidewalk and watched traffic inch along in the construction zone, was how long it’s taking.

“The residents say it is beautiful,” she says. “Before, it was a little dirty, right?”

Time will tell if there’s a connection between beautifying a street and improving people’s lives. But we know the city could have simply widened Bristol and skipped the aesthetics. I tip my hat to them for not skimping.

Souri Amirani, the Bristol Street project manager, says the city had planned for a long time to widen the thoroughfare and then decided to throw in some other improvements, such as landscaping and a linear park. She also hastens to tell me that palm trees grow in other parts of Santa Ana too.

Still, after having driven up Bristol Street so many times ...

“You’re not used to seeing palm trees in the middle of the street in Santa Ana,” Art Lopez says.

That’s true, I say. I count 28 of them between Edinger and McFadden, and Amirani says more are coming.

“What do you think of them?” I ask Lopez.

“I think I like them,” he says.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.