City of Arcadia has budgeted $55,000 for a downtown revitalization study, City Manager George Watts told members of the Arcadia Business Association at their monthly dinner meeting. See hard copy in Box 51.
The first phase of the Downtown Arcadia Revitalization Study has been completed by Willdan Associates, engineers, architects and planners. A public meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday at 8:30 A.M. in the council chambers at City Hall to present to Arcadians in general and downtown merchants and property owners in particular the consultants' preliminary findings.
A disappointing turnout of less than a dozen people (mainly real estate developers) attended the public meeting to discuss phase I of the Downtown Arcadia Revitalization Study held Tuesday, July 31. One idea offered at the meeting was to create an "Avenue of the Thoroughbreds." More interaction with business owners affected by such suggestions was hoped for.
Arcadia launches the new Arcadia Downtown Business Association, with plans to revitalize the downtown district. Matt McSweeney is the association's chairperson and owner of Matt Denny's Ale House Restaurant on East Huntington Drive. City officials will spend about $90,000 on a parking study and about $18,000 in redevelopment funds to get Arcadia Downtown Business Association off the ground. The revitalization plans should work nicely with the slated opening of the Gold Line station at the northwest corner of North First Avenue and East Santa Clara Street by 2014.
A call for comments on the proposed Downtown Revitalization Plan brought several suggestions and a few complaints at the Arcadia Planning Commission meeting.
The Arcadia Business Association held a meeting August 22, 1984, to inform 36 Arcadia business owners of the city's downtown revitalization plan. Unattractive storefronts were cited as a key problem to be solved. In order to ameliorate the situation the city might exercise eminent domain and relocation of certain businesses that fail to voluntarily cooperate with the city plan.
The Arcadia City Council plans to seek more than $1 million in damages against its original contractor for cost overruns in the City's Downtown 2000 revitalization project.
Between August 11 and September 30, the city will install brick sidewalks on Huntington Drive between 2nd Avenue and Santa Clara Street as the first major phase of Arcadia's downtown revitalization project.
Downtown 2000, the $4 million revitalization project, will primarily affect Huntington Drive and First Ave. Huntington Drive will have more landscaping and lighting, while First Ave. will have angled parking and landscaping to be more pedestrian oriented.
Downtown 2000: is the CFRP making a difference? In 1993, Arcadia City Council and the Redevelopment agency implemented the Comprehensive Revitalization Strategy and Program, a project designed to bring a new economic vitality to the downtown district. One of the main components of the program is the Commercial Facade Rehabilitation Program (CFRP), which provides financial assistance to downtown merchants for store-front improvements. Garlan Roberson received $11,000 from the Arcadia Redevelopment Agency for improvements to his business, Sullivan's Paints. Since the facade improvements, Roberson says business has increased significantly.
Article discusses the exchange of views between Councilman Haltom and local businessmen at the monthly meeting of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce Industrial-Commercial Committee.
The Arcadia City Council unanimously approved a General Plan update that aims to make the future Metro Gold Line station the heart of a revitalized downtown and the plan includes a revitalization of Live Oak Avenue.