Souring economy adds to Bayside woes
While the Third Street Promenade has changed and evolved, the problems that haunt it have not — except to increase in number.
Still in question is the ratio of retail, restaurants and entertainment. Officials constantly grapple with what constituents performance art and what is harassment. And, as anyone on the Promenade will tell you, the homeless remain a challenge.
However, for the first time the Bayside District Corporation — the public-private partnership between downtown business owners and the city — has to also deal with a souring economy, and to do that it may have to completely change how it regulates and represents downtown businesses.
“The focus of this organization will have to change,” said Kathleen Rawson, Bayside’s executive director, in the corporation’s January newsletter. “We have to completely re-engineer the approach that we take.”
Since its conception nearly a decade ago, Bayside officials have enjoyed governing a shopping Mecca during the longest peacetime economic expansion in the nation’s history.
When the crowds came, so did the nationwide retailers. As these businesses moved in they combined multiple spaces into mega-stores. As space became limited, rents soared and small businesses and restaurants were forced to move around the corner — changing the character of the Promenade.
The city wants to bring back the golden times, when a healthy mix of all that makes the Promenade interesting co-existed. To study how to fix the situation, the Santa Monica City Council has temporarily barred new retail stores from setting up shop on the Promenade and created a task force to study ways of keeping small, locally owned businesses thriving alongside larger retailers.
“We have to look at how we are going to refocus our efforts since the economy has changed; the market has changed and now we must rethink the direction we’re going,” said Rawson. “We’re completely in the planning stages right now and we’re just putting our budget together so we’re not ready” to talk about future plans.
Herb Katz, Bayside alumnus and current city councilman, summarized the Promenade’s challenges into three categories: store ratios, parking problems and lack of outdoor dinning.
“There’s too much retail, and restaurants are being priced out due to the availability of businesses willing to pay high rents,” he said. “We need to control that balance so our retail (presence) and the street doesn’t become just another shopping mall.”
As for parking, Katz served on the recently defunct Downtown Parking Commission and said the recommendations the committee made will take time and money before they become reality.
“There’s a huge parking problem,” he said. “But we need to be able to add parking without overloading the streets and overtaxing our facilities. The idea is to create the one-stop parking, where you don’t have to keep moving your car every time you want to go to a different store.”
But Katz said Bayside’s largest challenge will be to increase outside dinning.
“We have to encourage people to sit and have coffee or dinner. It has to be a combination of restaurants, retail and entertainment,” he said. “If when one of those combinations fail, then the whole thing falls apart.”
And while the changing economic circumstances are out of Bayside’s control, Rawson agrees that many of the solutions that traditionally plague the Promenade are within its grasp.
“Marketing efforts are within our control. We’re publicly funded so there’s not always enough money available for what we need,” she said. “We’re trying to get some seed money together to get some of the local merchants to advertise. We would buy the banner advertisement and maybe bring the merchants in at reduced costs.”
Rawson said Bayside needs to continue with its shopping campaigns and slogans. They remind residents of the importance to spend their money locally whenever possible, she said.
“It was very gratifying to hear from our merchants that local residents were coming in and saying they were trying to keep their spending in town,” said Rawson of the “Shop Santa Monica” holiday campaign.
And according to Rawson, holiday sales were higher than expected at local stores, encouraging businesses that the recent economic dip would not go much further.
“Certainly sales on the Promenade were extremely successful during the holidays and the number of visitors seems to be very strong,” she said. “Over 80 percent of Santa Monica residents visit downtown at least once a week. That’s a huge number.”
Success to Bayside would be to keep the Promenade running like it has for the past 10 years — with little city intervention and with little fanfare.
“We do have to try to keep our area unique. We spend a lot of time on those things one doesn’t always notice,” she said. “But if the trash cans are overflowing you notice it. We want people not to notice as many things as possible, and just enjoy themselves.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 16, 2002. Read the original PDF.