Business owners oppose Main Street block closures

Woodies ? not to mention SUVs ? cruising down Main Street could become a thing of the past if a test project to close downtown’s central artery to automobiles begins at the end of summer.

But some business owners are not thrilled with the plan.

The city’s economic development department is proposing to close about three blocks of Main Street, from Pacific Coast Highway to Orange Avenue, every weekend from Labor Day through New Year’s weekend.

The plan would close the street from noon Friday to 10 p.m. Sunday.

“We could study this thing to death, but without some sort of a structure, we would keep going in circles,” said Stanley Smalewitz, the city’s economic development director.

He believes a Labor Day weekend start date could galvanize the city’s staff to focus on the project.

A local delegation recently returned from a workshop with Santa Monica city officials to learn about that city’s experience with the Third Street Promenade.

At a May 12 meeting, the economic development department suggested setting up a working committee that will include city staff members as well as two to three downtown business owners, a police representative and the fire marshal to oversee the pilot project.

The proposal is set to be discussed by the City Council in June and must be approved by the council before staff members can form the working committee.

Many members of the Downtown Business Improvement District spoke out against the four-month project. They said they were surprised by the presentation of the pilot proposal at a recent meeting.

“Who’s the mastermind behind this, because we aren’t pushing this,” said Bob Bolen, owner of Huntington Beach Realty on Main Street.

About nine downtown businesses, calling themselves Third Block Merchants, signed a letter saying they are against closing Main Street because doing so would damage their businesses.

Bolen said Santa Monica has six city-owned parking structures with about 5,000 spaces close to the Third Street Promenade ? compared with Huntington Beach’s single public parking structure with 815 spaces.

Surf City has two parking structures owned privately by Plaza Almeria and Pierside Pavilion, but closing three blocks on Main Street would take away 57 street parking spaces.

Stephen Daniels, president of the Downtown Huntington Beach Business Assn., agreed that parking would be a problem.

Smalewitz, however, said there would be free parking during the pilot.

“I don’t know if it gets any better than that,” he said.

Hiring a valet parking service to set up valet stations at Walnut and Orange Avenues is an option that the committee would look at.

“People could get off at these corners instead of driving around to find parking,” Mayor Dave Sullivan said.

A valet service could find additional off-street parking locations and make arrangements to use privately-owned lots during off-peak hours.

But Joe Shaw, owner of retail store California Greetings, thinks the loss of parking spaces would drive away customers.

“I’m a small businessperson ? this is my livelihood,” he said. “There’s a very thin line between doing well in business and going out of business.”

Smalewitz thinks Huntington Beach is going through growing pains similar to those Santa Monica went through when it was building its public parking structures back in the 1960s. “That’s why they’re able to offer free parking for the first two hours,” he said.

Sullivan believes that Main Street’s close proximity to the beach ? as compared to the Third Street Promenade, which is several blocks away ? means “we’re starting way ahead of the curve.”

Smalewitz said the city could hold special events on Saturday evenings, invite street performers or host car shows and art events during the pilot.

“The whole deal is to bring people to the area so they’ll shop, eat and spend more time in downtown,” he said.

Around September, when the weather starts to turn, staff would be able to compare revenues for the summer with the winter seasons, Smalewitz said.

The numbers also would be compared against data from previous years.

Councilman Gil Coerper was supportive of the project.

Closing the street on the weekends would require the city to steam-clean the street and sidewalks and pick up trash left by pedestrians. New trash and restroom facilities also would have to be set up.

The department staff is putting together a budget to pay for parking and maintenance costs.hbi.18-downtown-2-CPhotoInfoRT1R1U6020060518izfbeenc(LA)hbi.18-downtown-1-CPhotoInfoRT1R1U5N20060518izfbdlncPHOTOS BY MARK DUSTIN / INDEPENDENT(LA)Above, Stanley Smalewitz, economic development director for Huntington Beach, recently introduced a pilot project to close Main Street to traffic and turn it into a pedestrian mall like the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Below, the first blocks of Main Street.