Council Hammers Out Promenade Recommendations

By Mark McGuigan
Staff Writer

September 10 -- Working to prevent Downtown from morphing into an “homogenized” shopping area overrun by corporate chains, the City Council Tuesday night moved one step closer in defining a proposal to preserve the “unique character of the Promenade.”

In making its list of recommendations, the council approved on first reading an interim ordinance requiring that new or expanding businesses have a Promenade frontage that does not exceed fifty linear feet. The move is expected to stem the influx the large corporate chains that are squeezing out restaurants and independent stores.

The council also voted unanimously to adopt two resolutions directing the Planning Commission to consider an amendment to the Bayside District Plan relating to outdoor dining areas, signage and the number of permitted restaurants and to consider an amendment to the City Zoning Ordinance relating to alcohol licenses.

“The more homogenized we get with every other shopping area I think the less attractive the Promenade is going to be,” said Mayor Richard Bloom. “And perhaps more importantly, the less useful it is for our own residents.”

At the center of the two-hour discussion was a series of 15 recommendations initially drafted by the Promenade Uses Taskforce to reverse the exodus of restaurants from the thriving heart of the city. Since 1991 the number of eateries tumbled from 49 to 31 representing a loss of 1,469 place settings in the Downtown area.

Part of this downward spiral, City officials said, was due to the influx of “formula” retail outlets along the Promenade. These businesses are defined as having standardized features, services and interior décor that are common to similar businesses located elsewhere.

“It’s not special at all if we have the same businesses everyone else has,” said Bloom. “If there’s any way to hold back the tide of formula businesses taking over the Promenade, I think we ought to exercise every option we have.”

The proliferation of corporate chains along the Promenade has long threatened the unique atmosphere in the Downtown area, officials contend.

According to one official document “the Promenade is becoming less unique and more like a typical outdoor shopping mall. If allowed to continue, this trend will threaten the unique character and economic and social welfare of the downtown area.”

The curb the number of large chains moving to the Promenade, Councilman Michael Feinstein advocated placing a cap on the number of "formula businesses" on the popular strip.

“We have to give direction to staff to find a way of having some threshold over conditional approval for formula businesses,” Feinstein said. “(This) is the direction we should be going so that we can try and preserve a mix of those on our Promenade.”

One recommendation expected to boost eateries calls for streamlining the permitting process for outdoor dining by requiring administrative approval, instead of a vote by the Planning Commission, a step that often delays restaurant openings.

“There are no simple solutions here,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corporation and one of five public speakers on the issue. “The Bayside Board believes you should remove the current caps from restaurants and allow administrative approval for restaurants without alcohol service.”

Council member Ken Genser agreed, saying that the objective was not to discourage the opening of restaurants but “to give them a little bit of a leg up and an even standing in terms of their ability to open for business and compete with the retail uses.”

The recommendation also includes a provision that would expand outdoor dining to "the center of the Promenade, at the outer edge of sidewalks and in the alleys,” according to the taskforce report.

“I want the council members to remember back to when the Promenade Uses Taskforce was formed,” said Taskforce member Bill Tucker, who sits on the Bayside Board. “As I recall the main impetus was outdoor dining, and outdoor dining I feel has taken a back seat to other causes.

“I would like the council to keep in mind that we want to keep the ambiance that is so important to the Promenade,” he said.

But maintaining a suitable level of ambiance has its downside, according to Mayor Bloom, particularly when the issue is one of placing tables in a public thoroughfare, where emergency vehicles might have to maneuver and where large crowds already congregate.

“The crowds on the Promenade are so dense it’s hard for me to imagine removing space so that we compress the crowds further,” Bloom said. “I understand some of the proposal is to remove the existing kiosks and put seating in those areas, but I’m skeptical whether or not we really end up with a net benefit moving down this path.”

Removing kiosks to alleviate the crush and to make space for al fresco dining was also criticized by members of the public, who said it would be detrimental to the overall safety in the Downtown.

“One thing I want to strongly urge is that the police sub-station has to stay on the Promenade,” said Jerry Rubin, who sells bumper stickers on the Promenade. “It would be terrible to turn that into a retail thing or a restaurant.

“You need something on the Promenade if a child is lost or if some emergency happens,” he continued. “It would be terrible to sacrifice that kiosk for anything other than public safety.”

Mayor Pro Tem McKeown later on concurred, commenting that “a concierge is not exactly what I’m looking for if I’m in trouble.”

In discussing the merits and failings of the list of recommendations, one issue on which all council members seemingly agreed was the pivotal role movie theaters played in preserving the buzz along the Promenade.

Linchpins of the commercial district that have been attracting thousands of visitors to Downtown every day of the week, these powerful commercial magnets are losing their attractive pull, City officials said.

Many cinemas along the Promenade are already outdated, and the required improvements would require a shift in City policy to accommodate larger structures and signage.

“It’s kind of frightening that 15 years changes business so much," McKeown said. “These theaters that were built as state of the art back then are now considered outdated.

“If we need to make that change we need to make it before it’s too late,” he added. “I think if we wait until people are no longer coming to those theaters then it’s much harder to bring them back, and we all want to keep them coming to Downtown Santa Monica.”

In order to facilitate the required updates so crucial to maintaining the steady stream of moviegoers, an exception would have to be made to the fifty-foot rule.

As outlined, the rule states that “frontage of any retail use along the Promenade shall be limited to 50 linear feet; retail frontage of greater than 50 linear feet should be permitted only by variance; any remaining frontage should have a minimum depth of 50 feet.”

The purpose of this rule, according to Council member Herb Katz, was “to figure out how to keep the scale of the Promenade the way it is today without allowing huge frontages taking over so you don’t end up with a block of six big huge corporate entities running it.”

Katz asked that this rule not be applied to movie theaters, citing that they “are an important entity. They need to be updated and they need to expand.”

Council member Bob Holbrook agreed. “If we do go to the point of limiting retail signage, clearly that wouldn’t apply to the movie theaters,” he said.

“It seems that the technical part of showing films has been evolving pretty steadily and there may be some major remodeling that might be undertaken by some theater operators.”

In an effort to bring back small specialty businesses, McKeown advocated lining passageways with retail spaces.

“What those passageways do besides allow access to people from the Promenade to parking spaces is that they also create highly concentrated traffic channels that allow for varied retail in very small space,” McKeown said. “Specialty stores used to thrive in those passageways when we had them.”

Council member Pam O’Connor agreed, calling for more “demonstration projects” to revitalize the Downtown area.