Montana Avenue to get face lift to entice shoppers; upscale merchants desire pedestrian-friendly touches.

Montana Avenue may be getting a face-lift if merchants along the ritzy Santa Monica shopping strip have their way.

The ultimate goal of setting a Montana Avenue "streetscape" plan in motion would be to boost business for the retailers along the street.

Many of the street's merchants have expressed a desire to see Montana develop a more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere, which they believe would boost business in the area. "The street's narrow storefront benefit from pedestrian traffic," said Lou Moensch, owner of a Montana Avenue pub called Father's Office, who is also chairman of the Wilshire Montana Neighborhood Coalition, a 350-member community group.

Actually, the idea to beautify and pedestrian-ize Montana came when the City of Santa Monica proposed to resurface the street and narrow it to two lanes from the four that presently exist. Neighbors and merchants along Montana and surrounding streets had been complaining that cars travel too fast on Montana, creating safety problems for pedestrians. The city then presented the idea of narrowing the street to discourage speeders.

A number of the merchants have not only been happy with the prospect of slowing the traffic flow, but also sense an opportunity to create a better shopping district through the street narrowing.

As Moensch put it, "We are gaining 11 feet of pavement on each side of the street if the city does narrow Montana. The question that is now being posed is what to do with that extra space."

The ideas that seem to be materializing now are not far from those being implemented on nearby Main Street.

Main Street's upgrading process began not long ago when the City of Santa Monica re-striped the street to make it one traffic lane in each direction. The street used to have four lanes of traffic, two in each direction. Since then, Main Street merchants have agreed to be included in a special assessment district and be assessed fees to fund continuing improvements on the street. The amount of those fees have not yet been determined.

The key elements of the Main Street Master Plan are changes to the lighting and sidewalks along the mostly retail thorough-fare, which runs through the Ocean Park district of Santa Monica.

Brandon MacNeal, a member of the Main Street Design Guidelines Steering Committee, said the lighting will be changed to light the sidewalks, rather than the street, to make the area more agreeable for pedestrians. The Main Street Design Guidelines Steering Committee is a group of residents, merchants and property owners which is making recommendations on possible street improvements to the City of Santa Monica.

The other key part of the plan is to widen the sidewalks, which can be done since the street was narrowed. "Sidewalks along Main Street have always been too narrow for there to be much foot traffic," said MacNeal.

The advisory committee is also asking that the city consider uprooting the trees along the sidewalks and replanting them in a median in the center of Main, MacNeal added.

Given that both Main and Montana merchants are trying to boost business by encouraging more pedestrian traffic along the streets, it should come as no surprise that the Montana proposals are similar to those being proposed for Main.

The ultimate goal for the Montana merchants is to achieve a "streetscaping" of some kind. "From an aesthetic point of view, most of us would like to give it a more blockish, planted and beautified look," said Montana Avenue Merchants Committee President Ray Montalvo. The Montana Avenue Merchants Committee, a 300-member group of business operators in the Montana Avenue business district, is working with the cooperation of the Wilshire Monatana Neighborhood Coalition on the issue of redesigning Montana Avenue.

As to the particulars of the landscaping, however, both merchants and residents will have to wait until an assessment district is approved by the City of Santa Monica. Merchant association President Montalvo said the merchants are in favor o improving the street. Whether or not establishment of an assessment district is supported by the merchants will probably depend on the amount of the assessment, which has yet to be determined, Montalvo said.

The first ask to be accomplished before redesigning and relandscaping Montana s having the street narrowed. The city has already developed the proposal to re-stripe Montana - transforming it into a two-lane street, said Montalvo. The City of Santa Monica has indicated that it would like to narrow Montana so long as the idea is agreeable to the merchants in the area. But that hardly seems to be much of a problem if Montalvo reflects the sentiments of the other store owners on Montana. "The city's goal is to slow down the traffic," said Montalvo. "It is will be nice for us because it will force people to slow down and look at the store."