It seems that much ink has been spilled of late in the service of writing negative stories about Pine Avenue. Emotions seem to be running high, as demonstrated by everything from stories in the weekly papers to a special report and reader survey in the Press-Telegram entitled Pain on Pine. This latest volley of stories and reader complaints may well originate in the looming closure of the modern home furniture store Z Gallerie, the last remaining national chain on Pine Avenue. An emotionally climactic event took place a couple weeks ago; at a community forum for downtown residents, business owners, and other stakeholders, passions ran high as all involved shared the frustration of Pine Avenue’s seeming atrophy.
This is not a case of atrophy through neglect, insofar as there have been many attempts to develop marketing strategies for attracting people and businesses downtown, attempts undertaken on the part of both city staff and Downtown Long Beach Associates (the administrative organization for the downtown’s Business Improvement District). Yet for one reason or another, there has been little success in recruiting and retaining quality retailers on Pine Avenue for the past few decades. The current depressed state of the national economy obviously makes this task even more difficult. In fact, some local officials advocate creating longer-range strategies to attract businesses to Pine Avenue when the economy is healthier, rather than in the immediate short term. This approach makes some sense; there is little point in aggressively recruiting national chains to locate on Pine Avenue while most such chains are closing locations across the country. Relying upon the independent boutiques is also difficult, not least because of the severely limited financing available for start-up businesses in the current economic climate.
Despite this understandable impulse to hold back on attracting commerce to Pine Avenue, the reality is that there will be no one day when we can say “the storm is over, so let’s get back to business.” Instead, economic revitalization will unfold day by day—on Pine Avenue, on Second Street, in the towers on Ocean Boulevard, in the industrial lands of the Westside, and in home offices across Long Beach. But if we don’t want to wait for some magical threshold for revitalization, then how does one swim against the stream to make Pine Avenue into the shopping, dining, and entertainment destination we want it to become?
For decades, downtown Long Beach (like the downtown areas of many other cities) has struggled to compete with shopping centers. In the decades following World War II, increasing numbers of people grew tired of urban grit and complexity, and growing private ownership of automobiles made it possible to abandon downtown Main Streets for the efficiency of shopping centers. In the last decade, shopping centers continued to evolve in the face of changing habits, as users have sought originality via newly-minted “lifestyle centers” like the Grove in Los Angeles or the Irvine Spectrum. This exemplifies how over and over again, developers been more successful in responding to (and shaping) shopping habits in comparison with downtown business associations.
In response to this state of affairs, downtown districts across the nation (including Pine Avenue in the case of downtown Long Beach) must learn from the success of shopping centers. This need not imply building yet another urban shopping center like City Place or the Pike. Instead, we can study the operating, management, and marketing methods of shopping center developers like Simon and Westfield, while at the same time taking full advantage of the benefits to be gained from being a downtown (and not a homogeneous building surrounded by a sea of parking).
In fact, the success of shopping centers should push us to rethink the urbanist criticism of parking, since one of the main sources of success for shopping centers is their ease of access. Typically located adjacent to major thoroughfares or freeway off-ramps, one typically enters them via adjacent (and easily navigable) parking lots or parking structures. While Pine Avenue has no shortage of nearby parking, accessing this parking can be confusing because it is not centrally located, and is managed by a bewildering array of businesses and city bureaucracies. Adjoining Pine Avenue are one-way streets, the bus-only First Street transit mall, dead-end streets, and the pedestrian-only Promenade; all these unusual features further complicate parking access. Indeed, simplifying the street network and the locations of parking structures would go a long way toward creating a more welcoming experience for downtown visitors.
There is likely enough commercial space available on and around Pine Avenue to suit most of the needs of modern retail. A continual barrier to attracting and retaining national retailers has been not space, but the inability to control the ensemble of tenants downtown. One key to the success of shopping centers has been their ability to assemble the right mix of tenants for their desired market, and then orient these tenants properly to take the greatest advantage of each, balancing competition with synergy. Without the benefit of single ownership (as in the case of shopping centers) or the near-dictatorial power over property owners held by bodies like the Irvine Company, it is hard to create such a useful mix of tenants.
While there is enough parking and commercial space to create a successful “Main Street” downtown, properly placed and well-considered additions could dramatically alter Pine Avenue to more effectively draw quality tenants and create a destination for downtown Long Beach. When creating a development strategy for Pine Avenue, we could draw upon the basic “dumbbell” layout of any shopping center, in which smaller store flank a central spine, with department stores anchoring the ends. Characteristics of shopping centers like this can be replicated on Pine Avenue, without any fear that such features would literally transform the public street into a shopping center.
Looking once again to the example of shopping centers, Pine Avenue needs to establish a singular identity—not a gimmick or a marketing strategy, but an identifiable characteristic that establishes a unique identity to the area, an identity reflecting the businesses, built environment, landscape, operations, and events found downtown. Branding Pine Avenue can include already-proposed new lighting that will highlight the street’s unique architecture. Expanding the native landscaping, modern lighting, and creative paving currently being installed on the Promenade could unify this pedestrian-oriented street with Pine Avenue, which should be a pedestrian-oriented street as well, even though cars travel down its middle. Large-scale advertisements on buildings within the “Entertainment District” around Pine Avenue could also help create a distinctive identity.
Despite the economic crises battering our state and nation, the effort to improve Pine Avenue’s offerings as a dining, shopping, and entertainment destination should start today. Even simple efforts to identify and catalog available commercial spaces could make a significant difference. Streamlining city permitting and inspection for new businesses would help reduce one of the most significant costs they face when starting up. The principle must be: remove any obstacle and create every opportunity to recruit new tenants for Pine Avenue. A common effort is necessary for Pine Avenue to compete on a regional scale.
