Bridge to Breakwater Project Forum
I got this in the E-mail the other day, come and yap!
On Saturday, June 4th, the three
San Pedro Neighborhood Councils will
hold a joint forum on an alternative
plan to be included in the environmental
review process.
June 4, 2005
10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Sheraton Los Angeles Harbor Hotel
601 South Palos Verdes Street
San Pedro, CA 90731
11 Comments:
I've got an alternative: EEK, Gafcon, and the rest of them just pack up and go home, and stop trying to foist this misbegotten thing on us. Well, I can dream, can't I? I'll try to be there for the forum.
Are they publicizing it anywhere other than through email?
The neighborhood councils generally uses little else besides E-mail to publicise their events. Maybe it's listed in the Random Lengths or Northwest or Costal did a walking man, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.
The developers were asked here by the Port and members of the community. They will stay as long as the projects look viable, and as long as the community and the Port want them to stay. I'm not against developing the waterfront (beginning with demolishing the eyesore that is Ports of Call), but I'm definitely not keen on the choice of developers and their past projects.
I've actually not been too active a participant in the Bridge to Breakwater process. One of the problems in Pedro right now is the sheer number of meetings one would have to attend if one were to be able to have input on everything they care about. I could quit my jobs and go to meetings 40 hours a week, easy.
Asked here by members of the community, were they? That's funny; nobody I know asked them.
I'd rather have Ports O' Call than this garbage, any day. Ideally, it isn't just for tourists; when I was a kid, my friends and family and I used to go down there all the time, and it was always full of locals. I'm talking late seventies, early eighties.
Granted, the idea of a fake New England fishing village right in the middle of a real California fishing village was a dumb idea from the beginning. But really, it's no dumber than, say, an expensive new pre-fab "town square" several blocks east of an existing, real town center. Or hotels by the fish market, or high-rises along Harbor Boulevard, or...
But back to PO'C: refurbish it, rename it, and lose some of the more excessive faux-New-England gewgaws, and you've got a perfectly nice and useful cluster of shops and restaurants by the seaside. An added benefit is that the buildings themselves (again, minus the fake New England tack-ons) are low-key, which I guarantee you will not be the case with anything we get as a component of (One Giant Mall From) Bridge to Breakwater.
If there really is a demand for shops and restaurants directly along the highline of the waterfront, what's now known as Ports O'Call is the perfect place for them, and it already exists. If there isn't such a demand...well, then why do we need EEK/Gafcon to make new ones for us?
Not to add anything useful to the conversation, but:
You Said It IMBG! Amen!
That is all.
The members of the community that move projects like this forward are agressive, development, types, like John Papadakis. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If One person with enough dough or well connected yells long enough, eventually folks move to their side, a coalition develops, and their will gets done. Regardless of the wisdom involved. There have been at least 20 public meetings on the waterfront development process, and the community who has participated in that process has largely, in my impression, in favour of re-development, with the biggest detractors being more interested in the details than kaiboshing the whole thing.
The reverse of the statement above is true, as well. It's easy to derail a project like this, once it's started, by becoming the squeaky wheel, yourself.
Here's the scoop on Ports of Call, regarding why they are not approporiate for continued use. As I'm sure most of us know, the existing New England sytle buildings were designed by the same fellow who designed town square at Disneyland. The problem with them being re-used is that their physical infrastructure in many cases does not support the mechanical needs of retail as we know it today. Most of the units have no bathroom, or even running water, they do not have anything resembling a storage area or backroom, the layouts are small or awkward and not well suited for many businesses. Some of the buildings have literally zero wall display space, because they are entirely sheathed in windows. I believe there are also serious problems with the plumbing system as it currently exists, leading to the seasonal flooding of several of the businesses.
Now we know that Ports of Call is the best site for a commercial development (existing parking, already developed, etc...), but what kind of commercial development do we want to see there? Any development that makes use of the current buildings will, IMHO, be forever handicapped by the Disney-esque infrastructure, and will not really serve the community. I'd like to see a development there that I can use every day. I'd like to be able to go to the market there, shop for a movie or video game, buy some pants, whatever. I'm not interested in kitschy local shops selling tourist crap. Look at the "oriental goods" shop that is still down there. Maybe a business that doesn't rely on faux-Asian junk would be great. I'd rather have a Asian hipster joint like Giant Robot Store #78 than a business that showcases the percieved naiveity of its shoppers. I'd like to be able to hang out and chow on some fish from the fish market, and I want to see the fishing boats, too.
We need someone to re-develop Ports of Call, because it is an eyesore, and will not attract useful business that serves the community, without major renovation. The problem with doing major renovation is the economics of it have to work out on paper, and as far as I can tell, the economics almost always side with having some reliable developer come in and drop a cookie cutter shopping object on your community. I'm not sure what the solution is, but being involved in the planning process, contacting the council office, possibly contacting the Port or any of the contractors working on the project is the best way to get your voice out there on projects like this. Contact the Random Lengths, or the Breeze. The chain to the folks who can actually do something, who sit down, behind closed doors and gab with the developers is very, very short. Be outspoken, your agenda on their agenda.
Frankly, most people are too busy or too uninformed to even know that big projects like this are going on in their town. Usually years pass, bulldozers work and people get to have their say on the success or failure of a project ony after it is finished and will be sitting there, failing or succeeding, for 20-40 years. I've been talking with folks about this project and other projects, and most of the native San Pedrans that I talk to are like "sure, sure, nothing ever changes, who cares." That perspective is one that will not serve their needs or desires in the long run.
Calamari wrote:
The members of the community that move projects like this forward are agressive, development, types, like John Papadakis.
That's precisely who I thought you meant, which is why I brought it up. I didn't want anybody reading that bit in your post about the developers being "asked here by the Port and members of the community" to get the false impression that there was some big groundswell of support in San Pedro for a bunch of out-of-town firms to come down here and develop this Del Amo By The Sea. It was basically Papadakis and a few others making a bunch of noise. Incidentally, I sat in on a meeting of the Coordinated Plan Subcommittee of the PCAC and saw Papadakis getting all hot under the collar at the very idea of members of the community (other than him) trying to have input into the Bridge to Breakwater process. Apparently the news that not everybody in San Pedro dreams of someday being more like Marina Del Rey or Long Beach doesn't sit well with him.
As I'm sure most of us know, the existing New England sytle buildings [at Ports O'Call] were designed by the same fellow who designed town square at Disneyland. The problem with them being re-used is that their physical infrastructure in many cases does not support the mechanical needs of retail as we know it today.
Yes, yes; it's a whole different world now in retail. Gone are the quaint old days when people had "shops" full of "goods" offered for sale to "customers" for "money." Nowadays if you don't have holographic merchandise suspended in mid-air and capable of giving its own sales pitch to the customers' cyborg shopper-drones, you're pretty much out of the game. Really, it's only a matter of time before all those retail stores built before 2005 are recognized as the obsolete eyesores they are, and razed.
Most of the units have no bathroom, or even running water, they do not have anything resembling a storage area or backroom, the layouts are small or awkward and not well suited for many businesses. Some of the buildings have literally zero wall display space, because they are entirely sheathed in windows.
You'll pardon me while I go and inform all those guys who run the kiosks at the mall that because they're making a living while operating small businesses without bathrooms or walls, their business model apparently violates the laws of physics or something...
I'd like to see a development there that I can use every day. I'd like to be able to go to the market there, shop for a movie or video game, buy some pants, whatever.
Dude, are there no grocery stores in your neighborhood? You seem to have some odd expectations, to put it mildly, as to the sort of commerce that you want to see on a waterfront promenade.
Shops along scenic waterfront walkways frequented largely by tourists and by locals on their days off exist to fulfill the frivolous (in a good sense) consumer desires of those tourists and locals. They're not there to provide anybody with basic consumer goods. You want groceries, you drive to Albertson's (or, if you're one of those livable-urban-spaces types, you walk downstairs from your apartment and go to the produce market on the corner, between the indie bookstore and the mom-and-pop coffeehouse). You want to take a scenic walk in the fresh air and buy your girlfriend a snowcone and a potted plant, you go to the little shops along the waterfront. It's two different scenes entirely.
I'm not interested in kitschy local shops selling tourist crap. Look at the "oriental goods" shop that is still down there. Maybe a business that doesn't rely on faux-Asian junk would be great.
Aw, man, I like Wing's Oriental Gifts. I don't know why, I just have a soft spot for that place. I used to love it when I was a kid, and I ain't no tourist (I loved the witchcraft/occult store at the north end by the candy store even better, but that's long gone). So leave them alone, dammit.
I'd rather have a Asian hipster joint like Giant Robot Store #78 than a business that showcases the percieved naveity of its shoppers.
Showcasing perceived naïveté, showcasing perceived need for overt displays of smug "ironic" awareness...same difference. Hell, if we really must have [yecch] "hipster" shops in San Pedro, wouldn't a better location for them be Seventh Street, where there would be a certain amount of crossover appeal to those art-knowledgeable wanderers of yours?
I'd like to be able to hang out and chow on some fish from the fish market, and I want to see the fishing boats, too.
The continued existence over thirty years of the Ports O'Call complex hasn't jeopardized the existence of the fish market or the visibility of the fishing boats, so I think that we can be reasonably certain that this will hold true in the future if POC is not demolished and replaced with whatever crap EEK/Gafcon want to put there.
We need someone to re-develop Ports of Call, because it is an eyesore
Need I remind you again that these things are subjective? The presence of a bunch of mincing trendies hanging out in the Giant Robot #249283478 in a strip mall where Ports O'Call used to be would be at least as much of an eyesore to me as POC is to you, believe me.
The chain to the folks who can actually do something, who sit down, behind closed doors and gab with the developers is very, very short.
How short is the chain to the folks who can make the fucking developers go away? (Don't answer that)
most of the native San Pedrans that I talk to are like "sure, sure, nothing ever changes, who cares." That perspective is one that will not serve their needs or desires in the long run.
On this, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It doesn't mean that everybody here will always be apathetic, though. Some fifteen years ago, there was an explosion of outrage in Pedro over developers running rampant and tearing down all kinds of historic houses to replace them with crackerbox apartments. People down here are complacent...until all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they aren't.
I went to the forum on Saturday, by the way. Turnout was better than I expected from an event with absolutely fucking no publicity (I searched far and wide for any announcements of this meeting on the websites of the three Neighborhood Councils and of the port. Nada.), and the discussion was lively and sometimes heated. Among the members of the community who participated in the "breakout group" discussions, there was a lot of division on issues like whether to preserve the warehouses south of 22nd Street and whether to expand or get rid of the Red Cars, but there was near-unanimous agreement that the port's (really, EEK/Gafcon's) B.T.B. plan has way, way too much development. People were also concerned about the car traffic that a cruise terminal in the Outer Harbor* would bring to Harbor Boulevard, whether or not it was realigned. And I don't think anybody wanted to see those godawful five-or-six-story mixed commercial/"maritime"/parking structures built between (existing) Harbor Boulevard and Sampson Way from 14th to 7th Street.
I went to this thing, frankly, expecting it to be a waste of time, but I'm glad I went. Maybe they'll actually publicize the next one and they can hold it at the Warner Grand or someplace.
*An old-timer by the name of Ray in my discussion group objected to the use of the cutesy new names favored by the port and the developers for areas that already have names, and he pointed out that the "Kaiser Point" area is properly called Outer Harbor. He's right; to this day if you pick up a longshore job at the fruit dock over there, your job ticket will say "OH 55."
Let me answer some of your comments-
Yes, yes; it's a whole different world now in retail. Gone are the quaint old days when people had "shops" full of "goods" offered for sale to "customers" for "money." Nowadays if you don't have holographic merchandise suspended in mid-air and capable of giving its own sales pitch to the customers' cyborg shopper-drones, you're pretty much out of the game. Really, it's only a matter of time before all those retail stores built before 2005 are recognized as the obsolete eyesores they are, and razed.
It is a different world in retail. Retail business is a serious business. And the serious folks who do business in the retail sector aren't going to play with you if you don't have infrastructure that supports their business plans. Let's not be silly here. I own a business, I have certain needs from any space where my business is located. If a building doesn't have what I need, I'm not going to locate there.
You'll pardon me while I go and inform all those guys who run the kiosks at the mall that because they're making a living while operating small businesses without bathrooms or walls, their business model apparently violates the laws of physics or something...?
We are not talking about mall kiosks. We are talking about retail businesses located in buildings. How well would the B. Dalton across from ye old mall kiosk function without a back room, bathrooms, etc... Where would a shoe store keep all of their non-display shoes?
Dude, are there no grocery stores in your neighborhood? You seem to have some odd expectations, to put it mildly, as to the sort of commerce that you want to see on a waterfront promenade.
Shops along scenic waterfront walkways frequented largely by tourists and by locals on their days off exist to fulfill the frivolous (in a good sense) consumer desires of those tourists and locals. They're not there to provide anybody with basic consumer goods. You want groceries, you drive to Albertson's (or, if you're one of those livable-urban-spaces types, you walk downstairs from your apartment and go to the produce market on the corner, between the indie bookstore and the mom-and-pop coffeehouse). You want to take a scenic walk in the fresh air and buy your girlfriend a snowcone and a potted plant, you go to the little shops along the waterfront. It's two different scenes entirely.
There are grocery stores in my neigborhood, that's not the issue. Actually, now that I think of it, with the excemption of the Numero 1 Market on Pacific, there aren't any very close to me, and there are no grocery stores in Pedro that carry the level, variety and quality of produce, meat and supplies that I would like to have within easy reach. I'd really like to see the fish market expand, attract other food oriented businesses and become a bustling area for daily shoppers. I'd love to shop for farm fresh foods and vegetables, every day, right on the waterfront. See Pike Place Market in Seattle. This is not an abnormal, nor an unsucessful concept.
I'm not a kitschy-boardwalk shopper type. I'd like to see practical businesses at Ports of Call. I don't care much for tourists or tourism, but I am big on serving community/regional needs. Right now, San Pedro has a big problem, the middle/upper middle class shoppers do their shoppign outside of San Pedro, which deprives the community of retail jobs, weakens the local tax base (This issue becomes massively important if San Pedro is to ever break off from LA, not an impossible event), and makes it hard for local entrepeneurs to be successful in their new businesses. The other side of this is why hasn't San Pedro attracted a larger variety of businesses to its downtown core? Has it been for a lack of effort by business leaders, or is San Pedro's infrastructure lacking in some way that turns off new business?
Showcasing perceived naïveté, showcasing perceived need for overt displays of smug "ironic" awareness...same difference. Hell, if we really must have [yecch] "hipster" shops in San Pedro, wouldn't a better location for them be Seventh Street, where there would be a certain amount of crossover appeal to those art-knowledgeable wanderers of yours?
I wasn't trying to imply that I want a Giant Robot in Pedro (If I have to look at one more minifig-ripoff, vinyl toy with a $100 price tag, I'm gonna vomit), I was trying to imply that I dislike Wing's so much that I'd rather see Giant Robot #4782 in Pedro than that. Although I know a number of hipsters in town (most born in Pedro) who are devoted to their expensive collectibles, I don't want to encourage that faux-art commercialism, personally.
Need I remind you again that these things are subjective? The presence of a bunch of mincing trendies hanging out in the Giant Robot #249283478 in a strip mall where Ports O'Call used to be would be at least as much of an eyesore to me as POC is to you, believe me.
I'm not trying to be objective in my assertation that Ports of Call needs to be re-developed. I care a lot about San Pedro's future (and its past, for that matter) and my desire to see recovery downtown and on the waterfront spring from that.
How short is the chain to the folks who can make the fucking developers go away? (Don't answer that)
How better to make me answer... The developers are not going away. San Pedro is the sole piece of coastal real estate in the City of Los Angeles, I don't need to explain what that means for our community in the long term. A lot of comparisons can be made between San Pedro in 2005 and Santa Monica at the end of the 70's. Eventually development will come to the area. The question for me is: are we going to be under the bulldozer or driving it. I'd rather have a hand on the steering wheel than one on the blade.
On this, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It doesn't mean that everybody here will always be apathetic, though. Some fifteen years ago, there was an explosion of outrage in Pedro over developers running rampant and tearing down all kinds of historic houses to replace them with crackerbox apartments. People down here are complacent...until all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they aren't.
My concern is that the locals are more than apathetic. My concern is that the majority of folks in Pedro are going to cheer when the first GAP get's built and that us crotchety, community minded folks are going to end up without the support from the general public that we need to keep San Pedro from hurtling over that cliff.
I'm glad that you wnt to the forum. Sometimes, I've gone to things like that and there are like 6 people there. Sometimes there are 300. It's a good thing that there are folks not pleased with the current plan. If we get the right combination of community passion and developer zeal, we could have a great waterfront, and I won't have to flee Pedro and spend the rest of my days in a bunker in Idaho. The cutesy names thing is such a slap in the face, I have no idea what kind of schooling developers get, but they always try and pull shit like that. Pedro isn't just up for re-development, it's up for re-invention, as far as they are concerned.
Calamari wrote:
It is a different world in retail. Retail business is a serious business. And the serious folks who do business in the retail sector aren't going to play with you if you don't have infrastructure that supports their business plans. Let's not be silly here.
I might well say the same to you, in this instance. The idea that the world of retail, as it pertains to small seaside shops catering to people on vacation and to locals enjoying their off-hours, has changed to a significant degree in the last twenty or thirty years is just goofy. We're not talking about Wal-Mart here. It really doesn't take that much space to sell t-shirts and chocolate covered bananas.
Ports O'Call, despite what you seem to think are insurmountable problems in its "infrastructure," was thriving a few decades ago. Whatever the reasons may be for its decline, they have little to do with the layout of the buildings.
We are not talking about mall kiosks. We are talking about retail businesses located in buildings. How well would the B. Dalton across from ye old mall kiosk function without a back room, bathrooms, etc... Where would a shoe store keep all of their non-display shoes?
A better question might be, who the hell goes down to the waterfront to shop at B. Dalton or buy shoes? That's why the good Lord gave us downtowns. The candy store never seemed to have any problem storing its non-display Sugar Daddies. Like it or not, restaurants and knickknack shops are where it's at for a seaside promenade.
There are grocery stores in my neigborhood, that's not the issue. Actually, now that I think of it, with the excemption of the Numero 1 Market on Pacific, there aren't any very close to me, and there are no grocery stores in Pedro that carry the level, variety and quality of produce, meat and supplies that I would like to have within easy reach.
Yet something tells me that the solution to this is not to plunk a grocery store down in the middle of a place where nobody lives.
Downtown absolutely is crying out for more grocery stores, clothing stores, electronic stores, coffeehouses, performance spaces, bookstores, and the rest. Right now people don't even think of shopping for those things in town; they automatically drive out to some big-box in Torrance. This needs to change. But it's downtown that needs these things (and not, please note, a bunch of fake fucking lofts) in order to become a livable space. Putting them a half a mile away just because it seems like a cute, fun thing to do is not going to help solve this problem.
See Pike Place Market in Seattle.
Clearly, EEK/Gafcon did.
You've actually been to Seattle, right? Surely you are aware that Seattle is a giant city built right along the water (kinda like Long Beach, only bigger)? Do you see why that just may not be the thing for San Pedro?
'm not a kitschy-boardwalk shopper type. I'd like to see practical businesses at Ports of Call. I don't care much for tourists or tourism, but I am big on serving community/regional needs.
So, serve them. In the community. Where people live. The best thing about living in a downtown, whether it's in Seattle or San Pedro, is that practically everything you need is within walking distance. The concentration of residences and local businesses and gathering places also makes for more and better daily interaction between neighbors, merchants, and potentially interesting strangers. It also serves as an alternative to the unfortunate postwar paradigm of urban/suburban design that puts people's residences so far away from the businesses they patronize and their gathering places (if they gather at all) that they have to get in their cars to do anything outside of the home.
Putting the "practical businesses" at Ports O'Call makes about as much sense, in that context, as putting Sacred Grounds on North Gaffey Street next to the CNG fueling station.
The other side of this is why hasn't San Pedro attracted a larger variety of businesses to its downtown core? Has it been for a lack of effort by business leaders, or is San Pedro's infrastructure lacking in some way that turns off new business?
It's not the infrastructure. There used to be all kinds of stores of the sort we're discussing in San Pedro. Some of them were breathing their last gasps when I was a kid; I was able to get the very tail end of places like Giant Bookstore (*sigh*), Ethel's Donuts, Kress, Newberry...
Big boxes had a lot to do with it, as did the advent of the malls in Torrance and Long Beach, and in a horrible sort of synergy their rise coincided with the peak of the postwar idealization in the public mind of the suburban model for the American Dream®. If a cluster of businesses wasn't big, new, shiny, and surrounded by a gigantic lake of a parking lot, it was seen as almost tawdry.
The pendulum is finally beginning to swing the other way in the public mind, but we down here don't seem to have gotten the memo, by and large. Why no businesses downtown? I won't pretend to know, but I suspect that it's a chicken-and-egg thing. Nobody wants to make the first move; shoppers won't come downtown until there are more businesses and vice versa.
Eventually development will come to the area. The question for me is: are we going to be under the bulldozer or driving it. I'd rather have a hand on the steering wheel than one on the blade.
I've seen enough of development in this area to know that the only way I'm driving that damned bulldozer is if I'm driving it off the pier and into the water (jumping off at the last minute in spectacular slow motion, of course).
It's a good thing that there are folks not pleased with the current plan. If we get the right combination of community passion and developer zeal, we could have a great waterfront
This, it would seem, is the difference between you and me in a nutshell. I cannot conceive of any combination involving developer zeal that will cause anything other than disaster. Never forget that a developer's zeal is for cramming as much development as possible, at as great a cost as the bidding process will allow, onto as many acres as he can get away with, and then going someplace else and doing it again. It's a destructive force, like the atom, and you try to tame it at your peril.
We've already got a great waterfront. The sad thing as that we don't know why it's so great. If we did, we would know how to use it, and we wouldn't be susceptible to the preposterous Queer Eye fantasy being peddled by EEK, Gafcon, the Harbor Department, Papadakis, and the rest of them. And once our "community passion and developer zeal" have obliterated that waterfront, we'll never be able to get it back.
IMBG:
I'm not keen on this sort of back and forth as it eventually always leads to hair splitting (and looks like it's about to), which is counterproductive. It's obvious that we have some very different views on retail business, the eyesoreness of certain things and development in general, and could probably go back and forth all day.
What I'm interested in knowing, is what you would do if you were planning out some of the developments in Pedro. I think we both agree that there are numerous places where, regardless of your opinion on development (and there is room in this town for a whole range of those), some degree of development/change/re-development is part of the future of this town. What would you do if you ere holding the reigns?
Well, "planning out" is what I would probably do to most of them--as in, out of existence. Especially, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you by now, the faux-lofts and the "luxury" condos.
But if you want to know what I would do if I were in charge of all future developments in San Pedro, I believe it would go a little something like this:
1. Absolutely no more building on "spec," that is, creating large developments in anticipation of projected (or hoped-for) future demand. That means no throwing up huge office buildings in the hopes that a tenant or tenants will materialize once San Pedro is magically transformed into a business hub. No more lumbering chain hotels plunked down in the middle of downtown or by the beach for the tourists of the future while substantially uglifying the landscape for the locals of today (this would also eliminate the howling irony of having endless PCAC meetings in a half-empty Sheraton concerning the propriety of building hotels and timeshares along 22nd Street).
2. No big boxes.
3. See rule 2.
4. No spending city money on silly, pointless "improvements" to features of Pedro's geography that were doing just fine without them. An example from the recent past is that walkway along Paseo del Mar where people had been walking for decades without significant difficulty. Spend that money planting trees on Gaffey Street or something.
5. There are other things that can be done, believe it or not, with old residential hotels and flophouses than turn them into "upscale" condominiums. Owners of such buildings would be encouraged to do those things, and I would relax zoning/codes/taxes somewhat, if necessary, to encourage this.
6. So you want to build a bookstore, drugstore, apartment, or even a condominium in San Pedro, and you're frustrated because I won't let you tear down or otherwise ruin a historic building, and I won't spend city money to get some developer to destroy a working port to build it for you? Don't worry. There are plenty of places to build in San Pedro, and I won't object at all--in fact, I'll help you. I'm talking, of course, about the places that my predecessors over the last thirty years have allowed to be blighted with strip malls, cinderblock auto parts chains, and other (real) eyesores. Take the lot on the northwest corner of Sixth and Pacific. Until the mid-1990s, it was a perfectly decent bank building. After the bank left, somebody had the bright idea to let an auto parts chain build a hideous cinderblock crackerbox on the site, complete with barely-landscaped parking lot. And this was allowed to happen right at the beginning of what some hoped would be downtown Pedro's renaissance. Want to put an apartment building there, or a restaurant? I'll do everything in my power to help you get your hands on the property, and get your project approved. Anything would be better than what's there now. Now think of all the sites on Gaffey, Pacific, and elsewhere that have been similarly ruined, and start making plans.
7. About those plans. I don't really care what you build on the site where McDonalds used to be, but I must insist on a few things. Put the parking lot, if any, in the back. Your storefront needs to be at the sidewalk to encourage pedestrian traffic, and discourage the other kind. Also, spend a few pennies on some architectural features, like they did back in those bygone days when buildings were still built to be aesthetically pleasing to human beings. If I find out that your new project is as ugly as the one it replaced, I'll have you defenestrated.
8. But before any of that, I would work on getting mom 'n' pop operations back into the existing spaces downtown and on the Pacific Corridor. Until that happens, new development anywhere is just a sick joke.
9. If you, the developer, happen to be a hot chick with a--OK, I'm getting drunk with power here.
Post a Comment
<< Home