Upbeat on Third Street: City Manager Shares Thoughts on Downtown’s Future

By P. Lamont Ewell

As I’ve become more familiar with the Downtown, from living here and from talking to Council members, Bayside board members and business operators and touring the Promenade with Kathleen Rawson, a few key areas for us to work on in partnership have become clear to me.

The movie theaters definitely need to be updated so they continue to be a major draw and offer a top quality experience to moviegoers. The scale of our Downtown must be maintained, keeping the charm and vibrancy, and the streets that parallel and cross Third Street must be reinvigorated with pedestrian-serving businesses.

The streetscape improvements on 2nd and 4th Streets are a good start. We are committed to providing the clean, safe, wholesome, lively environment residents and visitors want in the Downtown. The adaptive reuse now being proposed for Santa Monica Place will bring a new vitality to the Broadway end of the Promenade, better connecting the Downtown to the Civic Center and to the Pier.

We must follow through with our 10-year plan to rebuild the parking structures in the Downtown, making sure we achieve our objectives of adding spaces, because parking will continue to be a challenge (unless people start jumping on the Big Blue Bus faster than we expect). We definitely need better directional signage in the Downtown and around the Pier area to help drivers navigate to venues and parking structures and lots.

And we must continue finding ways to assist in reducing the impacts of homelessness on the Downtown, so that the current clash between homeless individuals and residents and visitors coming to enjoy the shops, dining and entertainment is muted. Reducing the numbers of homeless and dealing with aberrant behavior are among our biggest challenges in the Downtown. We’re making strides, but we can do more.

On a policy level, we are looking at drafting guidelines to ensure that in the next 20 years we make the highest, best use of city- controlled land in the Downtown and on the beachfront while remaining true to the community’s values, as expressed through City Council policy and budget decisions over the past 20 years.

Through public-private partnerships and other options available to us, we can generate extra revenue through strategic land use decisions in the Downtown that in turn can support more programs to address the community’s greatest needs and most vulnerable populations (children, seniors, low income residents, mentally ill homeless individuals).

We all enjoy the positives of our Downtown: the mix of restaurants and shops, outdoor dining, the eclectic entertainment offered by street performers, the Farmers Markets, the number of theaters, the art features, and the energy of the people who stroll the Promenade. My vision is to see the ambience extend out to the perimeter streets and to capitalize on all that is positive while minimizing or eliminating the negative.

Sometimes we’ll take small steps, such as the attended restroom pilot program this summer, and sometimes we’ll take bigger steps, as with the land use decisions. But the point is to keep on stepping! And to stay in step with each other in the process.

The City, the businesses and Bayside all have the same goal: sustaining the economic strength of the Downtown so that it remains a vibrant location for our residents and visitors to enjoy. Working together, we can do it. You weathered the economic downturn after 9-11 and I believe we’re well positioned to weather any challenge (as from the Grove) that comes along.

The Bayside District Board of Directors and the staff, led by Ms. Rawson, have been instrumental in the success of the Downtown thus far. We all look forward to the work of Progressive Urban Management Associates in creating a business plan to take the management, marketing and maintenance of Downtown to the next level. The future of Downtown Santa Monica looks bright.