Hefty power bill: Businesses to pay $6K annually for new lights
By KIM CALVERT Special to the Daily Press
MAIN STREET — The sidewalks here will soon be aglow with new lighting that will stretch from Pico Boulevard to the southern edge of the city.
The installment of the new lights, which started Wednesday, is expected to be completed in the next two weeks. It consists of vintage-style light bulbs suspended on string wire. Sometimes called “festoon” or “promenade” lights, the outdoor lighting is frequently seen in Europe, according to Main Street Business Improvement Association Executive Director Gary Gordon.
Gordon said the lighting project was the result of a fund established by City Hall to help businesses that were severely disrupted when the city undertook massive sewer repair in the area. The street was torn up on and off for nearly two years.
“This was massive, it was huge... the city called it a ‘sewer mitigation fund,’” Gordon said. “It was set up to be used by members of our association in whatever way we agreed would best be used for overall capital improvement of the area.”
Members of the Main Street Business Improvement Association, which consists of 400 businesses on Main Street, discussed the options and determined that permanent, decorative lighting would be the best choice given the amount available in the fund — about $225,000, Gordon said.
“That much money doesn’t go far when you’re talking about a capital improvement project,” he said. “There wasn’t a whole array of possibilities to choose from. But we did know from the Christmas lighting we’ve done in the past that the right kind of decorative lighting can have a wonderful effect on people.”
Gordon said the association also wanted to pick a capital improvement project that would draw attention to the eclectic personality of Main Street.
“We wanted something that no one else had — something that would signify where Main Street starts and where it ends — something that would make a positive impression on the people who shop and work here,” he said.
Joe Pipersky, co-chair of the Main Street Business Improvement Association, and owner of Joe’s Diner and Holy Guacamole, originally suggested the idea of the decorative lights.
“I saw them on my trips to England and Italy, and always thought they were beautiful,” Pipersky said. “Besides looking really nice, they use a low-voltage bulb, are highly efficient and incredibly inexpensive for what you get — plus they’re resistant to corrosion from salt air.”
The new lighting will turn on at dusk and be left on initially for four hours. It doesn’t replace the regular cobra-head street lighting. Pipersky said the new lights are meant to illuminate the sidewalk, not the street.
“It will cost the business improvement district $6,000 a year to cover those four hours of lighting each day,” Pipersky added. “But we hope that the businesses that stay open later in the evening, the bars and restaurants, will be willing to kick in the extra funding needed to keep the lights on longer.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 20, 2005. Read the original PDF.