BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO TOWN PLANNERS TAKING CUES FROM OTHER CITIES FOR NEWHALL.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

NEWHALL - It's a dusty, worn, older town center - a one-time crossroad of communities drained of civic life and retail dollars by economic doldrums and competition.

It's Old Newhall, where officials are drafting a plan to revive three blocks of neglected San Fernando Road into a bustling pedestrian and entertainment district after 20 years of inattention.

Their challenge is not unique. Pasadena transformed a stretch of Colorado Boulevard from what was once the city's Skid Row. Monrovia overcame vacancy rates of 40 percent to re-create its main drag of Myrtle Avenue.

``We were starting to get adult bookstores, adult movie theaters, liquor stores, and the rest of the community was going along with it,'' said Richard Singer, a city of Monrovia spokesman.

In Monrovia, it took a common vision of a newly elected city council, a plan and several decades to turn these once-depressed areas into the popular destinations they are today, Singer said.

``The legend was, they drew up the plans on a pizza box,'' he said.

That same process is under way in Newhall - minus the pizza box.

A specific plan being compiled by city of Santa Clarita planners and Pasadena-based urban consultants Moule & Polyzoides would lay down traffic, parking and zoning rules governing the area - essentially a blueprint for an urban renewal process that would emerge over the next two decades.

The City Council and Planning Commission are scheduled to review a draft on Feb 1.

``It's kind of a multipronged approach,'' said Alan Loomis, an urban designer at Moule & Polyzoides. ``It's to come up with a vision for the place.

``(Traffic flow, parking and zoning) are sort of the central planning tools that have to be in harmony with one another in order to deliver the vision of the plan,'' he added. ``Without these other tools in place, we're just drawing a sketch without giving you any way to make it happen.''

Preliminary plans include severing San Fernando Road at Lyons Avenue to create a pedestrian-friendly ``Main Street,'' a widened Railroad Avenue and two parking structures. Sidewalk expansion also was proposed to foster patio dining and street life.

``What you're trying to achieve is trying to create an energy out there, that people would want to come to downtown Newhall,'' city planner Jason Smisko said. ``You're trying to create that environment overall that people will consider downtown Newhall as a destination.''

At a Santa Clarita City Council meeting last month, Monrovia officials presented their redevelopment model. They cited a clear, unified vision by its governing panel as the engine for their success.

``Everyone who wants to run for office here knows the story,'' said Singer, Monrovia's public information officer. ``They share a common vision, even if they don't always agree on the details.''

Founded in 1886, Monrovia was a pit stop, a slice of civilization amid the once-expansive farmland between Pasadena and Pomona. But from the 1950s, when Southern California was giving birth to uniform suburbs, the city was left behind.

By 1972, the 12 blocks that was Monrovia's commercial core had a 40 percent vacancy rate.

``Business resisted having large companies in town,'' turning down retailers' dollars neighboring cities embraced, Singer said. ``The downtown started to die.''

Then came a newly elected City Council that led the area's revitalization. Planners shrunk the downtown core from 12 blocks to a more manageable six blocks. The remainder was rezoned for light industrial use, which provided office space and lunchtime customers for Myrtle Avenue, Singer said.

Over the next two decades, officials also redesigned parking and traffic flow to ensure visitor convenience and developed mixed housing - from small, low-income apartments to condos - in order to foster a native community.

It was slow going, but the city managed to cut vacancy rates to about 20 percent by the early 1990s, despite tough competition from the Santa Anita Mall just up the road in the city of Arcadia, Singer said. The infrastructure and zoning were in place - the neighborhood needed a jump- start.

In 1995, local business leaders and city officials formed a vision committee to plot the next step - attracting entertainment to the area. Their efforts brought a 12-screen multiplex, built in a style that resembled the old single-screen movie palaces from an earlier century.

``The theater brought with it restaurants and specialty boutiques, and turned what was a somewhat successful retail and office downtown into an entertainment and shopping downtown,'' Singer said.

Officials formed a business promotion district, which collects about $20,000 a year from Myrtle Avenue businesses for city-coordinated advertising.

Coupled with two decades of streetscape improvements and buildings restored to their rugged, red-brick finish, the result is something beyond the typical shopping or entertainment found in local malls, Singer said.

``That mall's expanded,'' he said. ``But people don't come here just to eat, just to walk or just to go to the movies. We're offering the old-town experience. It's people who want to stroll down the street looking at the windows, eat at a restaurant, shop at a boutique, and go see a movie.

``Like any business, there's always competition. So we present a different product.''

Monrovia's quaint downtown now draws thousands of visitors every week, some there for the weekly farmers market, others for a taste of the past - refurbished over two decades. But city leaders aren't resting on their laurels - and likely never will, Singer said.

``You're always working on it,'' he said. ``You're always changing it - going with the market, or leading the market at some point.''

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) An old-town atmosphere prevails along Myrtle Street in Monrovia, above, after its renovation - something that Santa Clarita planners want to do in Old Newhall, above left.

David Crane/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) Santa Clarita planners and consultants Moule & Polyzoides are working on a blueprint for a two-decade-long urban renewal process for Newhall.

(4 -- 5) Myrtle Street in Monrovia, above, is the result of a city vision and planning that turned a seedy stretch of town into a pedestrian haven. Santa Clarita officials would like to similarly transform Old Newhall, below.

David Crane/Staff Photographer