City tries to shed image of county bureaucratic center. (Spotlight on Norwalk).

NORWALK is known to many as the place just off the Santa Ana Freeway where you get married, appear in court, or pick up a copy of your birth certificate. Beyond that, the city is just another bedroom community with commercial strips along Imperial Highway, Rosecrans Avenue and Firestone Boulevard -- but lacking a true center.

Now, city officials want to get beyond that faceless image and redevelop the area near the Civic Center into a commercial center to capitalize on a population of 103,000, plus the 2 million visitors who use those government offices each year.

"We're trying to create an identity for the city," said Ernie Garcia, Norwalk's city manager. "A lot of suburban cities do have an identity crisis. "The vision is making the Civic Center the focal point."

They hope that recent or pending developments for the area, which is centered at the intersection of Imperial Highway and Norwalk Boulevard will help. That includes:

* Completion by the end of the year of the 125,000-square-foot Norwalk Entertainment Center. The city is nearing an agreement with Phoenix-based Vestar to build a six-tenant food court (Starbucks and Togo's are among the discussed tenants), a stand-alone restaurant and a 24,000-square-foot retail building. This will complete a process that began six years ago with the construction of the AMC Norwalk 20 Theatres. Additional restaurant and retail development of a 1.5-acre plot between the entertainment center and a Marriott Hotel to the south is also being discussed.

* The recent completion of the $15 million Norwalk Transit Center, the main terminal for the city's bus system. The center, which adjoins the Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs Metrolink Station, will allow more buses to come in and out of the area and make it easier for government employees who come into the city on the Metrolink to get to the Civic Center.

* The opening this summer of a Target store just west of the Civic Center. The Minneapolis-based retail giant purchased the site of the old Montgomery Ward, which took up about half of the 50-acre Paddison Square shopping center.

City officials want to draw both the large base of government employees and Norwalk residents. "Unfortunately, people go out to Cerritos Mall or Long Beach, rather than staying here," said Julie Johnson, president of the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce.

But the prospects of bringing additional retail operations have been limited and may actually have drawbacks. The city has had little success in its discussions with the landlords of the remaining portion of Paddison Square to renovate the deteriorating property. And the new Target could hurt Paddison's mostly mom and pop stores such as 97 Cent Plus.

But other merchants are not threatened by Target.

"Most people go to the civic center and then go to the highway -- we're hoping that they stop to shop," said Lloyd Santasawatkul, manager of the Paddison Square water bottling store Agua Pura.

Officials are less optimistic about the future of additional office development beyond the Civic Center -- despite available land. The 180,000-square-foot Norwalk Corporate Plaza, whose largest tenant is Verizon Communications, is 96 percent filled, but the 5.3-acre plot of land next to it has sat vacant for 15 years.

Rents have not supported other corporate office development, said Trammell Crow Co. Vice President Craig de Miranda, who estimated full-service lease rates to be in the $1.35 to $1.65 per square foot range. "You need to be way over $2.00," he said.

Incorporated in 1957, Norwalk was primarily a bedroom community, with the occasional farm mixed in. That changed in the 1960s, when a county courthouse building was completed next to City Hall, while a 500,000 square foot office campus was built by engineering firm Bechtel Corp. for its defense-related operations at Imperial Highway and Bloomfield Avenue.

Defense cuts in the early 1990s prompted Bechtel to shrink its operations and ultimately abandon the area altogether. Meanwhile, the L.A. County government, looking to move from its older facilities in downtown Los Angeles, took advantage of the available space and a growing middle-class labor pool by moving its registrar's office and hall of records operations to the vacated Bechtel buildings.