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By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer
August 20 -- Imagine
a neighborhood center close
enough to walk to, where folks
can grab a cup of coffee or
find that special gift, while
catching up on the local gossip
with shop owners and employees
who’ve been friends for
years.
If you’ve been listening
to the urban planners around
City Hall lately, it sounds
like a dream come true. But
for some small businesses and
their customers in Sunset Park,
it may become a thing of the
past.
Rapidly rising rents and limited
foot traffic on Ocean Park Boulevard
between 16th and 17th streets
are causing mom-and-pop stores
to reevaluate their plans and,
in some cases, shut their doors
for good.
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| Ocean
Park Boulevard between 16th
and 17th streets. (Photo
by Ann K. Williams) |
Some see the problem as nearly
inevitable in the face of Santa
Monica’s spiraling property
values.
Corporations pay tens of thousands
of dollars a month in rent on
the Third Street Promenade,
and “then it radiates
to the rest of the city,”
said Irene Coray who runs Kulturas,
a used book store in the area.
Others are a little less philosophical.
“It’s a travesty.
Eventually they’re going
to put us all out of business.
They keep raising rents,”
said a business owner from a
few blocks north who didn’t
want to be identified.
Whatever the cause, change
is brewing in Sunset Park, and
not necessarily slow change.
It’s hard to miss the
yellow “moving”
sign outside Artesanias Oaxaca
at 1634 Ocean Park Boulevard,
an art and curio store that
opens up to a brightly colored,
sometimes whimsical, sometimes
macabre world of spirits, saints,
processionals and flowers.
Although his rent’s gone
up, the store’s owner,
Fernando Cervantes, said that’s
not the main reason he’s
moving.
After 12 years in Sunset Park,
Cervantes is relocating his
business to 2919 Pico Boulevard,
next to Lares Restaurant, where
he hopes to get more foot traffic
and some spillover from the
restaurant crowd. He says he
needs to make more money to
support his college-aged children
and hopefully buy a house.
Next door, Colby Evett and
his wife Yvonne don’t
expect to stay in business after
next summer. After years of
annual rent hikes of $100 per
month, their landlord raised
the rent from $1,700 a month
to $2,500 a month this summer.
(see
story)
And they expect their rent
on their one-of-a-kind model
shop to double next year.
That’s when they figure
they’ll have to close
Evett’s Models at 1636
Ocean Park Boulevard, after
60 years in business at the
same location.
“The landlord told us
you won’t be able to have
a Mom and Pop type business
here,” said Evett.
But no one is blaming the landlord.
He’s working under the
same economic pressures they
are, and his rents are still
well below market value, said
several of his tenants.
“He’s a hell of
a nice guy. He’s the cat’s
meow as far as I’m concerned,”
said Victor Larivee, owner of
The Bicycle Shop at 1638 Ocean
Park Boulevard. “He helped
me when I moved in. He has to
go along with the trend.
“It’s economic,
it’s that old English
capitalism,” Larivee said.
“It’s the game we
have to play.
Larivee has been in business
22 years and plans to hang in
there, but he worries that he’ll
have to “kiss my retirement
goodbye.”
The landlord, Jerry Green,
is on vacation in Europe, and
was unavailable for comment.
A few doors down, the Talking
Stick coffee house is facing
an uncertain future.
A safe haven for teenagers,
poets and knitting groups, the
Talking Stick will probably
have to close to make way for
the Thyme Market and Cafe, the
brainchild of the new building
owner’s daughter, said
Talking Stick owner Rich Braaksma.
Braaksma said he is marking
time until he receives a promised
90-day notice from his landlord,
the David J. O’Keefe Trust,
who, according to Braaksma,
is “stuck in the permit
process.”
“Bureaucracy for once
is working in our favor,”
he said.
As pastor of a store-front
church in Venice, the upbeat
Braaksma is no stranger to getting
by on a wing and a prayer. But
he’s not sure what’s
going to happen to his business.
“It’s a challenge,”
he said.
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