By Jonathan Friedman
Lookout Staff

May 17, 2010 -- Downtown Santa Monica is more than just a shopping district. It is a “comprehensive urban community” in a pedestrian friendly environment that stands out in the vehicle-focused Los Angeles area.

This will be the focus of a Vision Plan created by the Bayside District Corporation, which is currently re-evaluating its corporate identity with the help of consultant Shook Kelley, a nationally renowned branding firm.

After poring over demographic data and user surveys, conducting street interviews and meeting with Downtown stakeholders, including the Bayside Board members, Shook Kelley came up with 25 recommendations as part of the branding process. At a study session last month, Bayside Board members prioritized those categories.

Topping the list were creating a Vision Plan and addressing the Bayside District Corporation’s brand name and identity, which could possibly lead to a new name for the district.

New things like a name change and a Vision Plan are part of what keep communities “alive,” said study session host Kevin Kelley, a principal at Shook Kelley.

“The name change and the vision is a real opportunity to tell the public, ‘We’re on the move, we’re making progress and we’re going somewhere. We’re not tired, we’re not old. We’re moving forward.”

Other well-received recommendations included improving the alleys, “creating a memorable sense of arrival and threshold experience upon entering the Bayside District” and shifting the perception of the area from a shopping district to a “comprehensive urban community.”

“We are much more than just a commercial district,” Board member John Warfel said. “And we lose everything if we just become a shopping district. We’re an entertainment district. We’re an office district. We’re a residential district. It (the branding process) is all about getting people to realize they are here and what this can do for them.”

Kelley added, “All communities have shopping. A good wholesome community has a little bit of everything; a post office, a drug store, a movie theater. It’s a comprehensive community, and you certainly have that.”

The next step in the branding process is to create the Vision Plan. This will not be a land use document setting specific zoning rules, but rather it will “paint a picture,” Kelley said.

“After we paint that new vision, you create a name for that,” said Kelley, who added that he wanted to get away from calling it a “brand” to avoid confusion with the concept of commercial brands. “We develop that, and we start to promote that as our future, saying, ‘This is where we are going and this is what we want’” our community to look like in five to ten years.

Kelley estimated the Vision Plan would take about three months to create. It would involve a series of expert panel discussions for Downtown stakeholder audiences on specific subjects related to issues of quality, economic development and lifestyle.

Comments gathered from stakeholders at these sessions would be used to form the Vision Plan. Prior to drafting the document, a final meeting would take place to talk about the priorities. Included in the Vision Plan would be a consolidated version of most of the 25 recommendations.

The Vision Plan would also be used as a basis for the update to the 1996 Downtown Specific Plan, which is a technical document of zoning regulations. This plan is slated to be updated after the City finishes the current process of updating the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) of its General Plan, which does not address the Downtown.

Meanwhile, work will soon begin on the name and identity of the Bayside District. Kelley said he was not surprised several Board members looked at this as a priority. But he did not expect it to have such strong support.

“We expected someone to come out and defend the name with great vigor, and it never happened,” Kelley said.

None of the Board members objected to a name change, or to at least taking a close look at the issue. Board Chair Bill Tucker called the current name “a little confusing.”

“Unless you’re on the Board, you might not even know it” is called the Bayside, he said. It was noted that many people do not even realize Santa Monica is next to a bay, making “Bayside” a difficult word to connect with.

Before the board possibly chooses a new name for the district, consultants will test the name "Bayside” and a variety of other choices with the public. “We would cut it, slice it, dice it, and test it in a variety of different ways,” Kelley said.

The Board would then have to decide whether a new name is the best route, or if it would be a better idea to keep the name “Bayside” and work to make it more memorable and more meaningful. He said there are examples of challenging names becoming appealing brands, with AFLAC Insurance being an example.

During the next three to five years, the District will work on implementing the other recommendations. They include making a better connection and link to the ocean and beach by changing the nature, character and, perhaps, function of east-west streets.

Board members and key staff will maintain ties with the neighborhood groups and further involve and engage the community by hosting a series of guided workshops on selected topics of immediate interest to the district and the community at large.

Bayside staff will prioritize the recommendations that should be addressed this year. If Bayside is able to complete about 80 percent of these recommendations, Kelley said, the branding exercise would have been worthwhile.

One of the recommendations includes “establishing a greater level of brand awareness and brand integrity throughout the entire district.” The theme of an inclusive district with a common brand was echoed in several other recommendations and was a topic of discussion at the study session.

“We are more than this one street,” said Rob York, a consultant for the Bayside District. “We’ve got this great, iconic internationally known powerful street, but we are so much more than that.”

City Council member Gleam Davis, who is the council liaison to the Board, said it is important to expand the “wonderful excitement and cache of the Promenade to the rest of the district."

One of the suggestions made to extend the success of the Promenade to other streets would be to expand the pedestrian-friendly features, such as sidewalks and crosswalks, to those areas.

“Businesses don’t have to be right on the Promenade in order to be successful and benefit” from the popular strip, Davis said. Spreading the success is important, she said, because Downtown “is really the economic engine of the city.”

"New things like a name change and a Vision Plan are part of what keep communities alive,"
   Kevin Kelley

“Unless you’re on the Board, you might not even know it” is called the Bayside.”
             Bill Tucker.

“We are much more than just a commercial district, we lose everything if we just become a shopping district.”           John Warfel