Main Street Huntington Beach is for cruising.
These days, the street is jam packed with tricked out cars blaring music. Drivers don’t seem to mind waiting in the long line of traffic that flows off of Pacific Coast Highway.
The city of Huntington Beach wants to stifle the cruising and boost the shopping. The city wants to offer more in the downtown area to attract some of the deep-pocket shoppers that normally go to Fashion Island, Irvine Spectrum Center or South Coast Plaza.
“I’m trying to look at the quantity of people,” said Stanley Smalewitz, economic development director for Huntington Beach. “I’m also trying to encourage people who have money to spend to come downtown.”
The goal: draw more Huntington Beach residents and hotel guests, Smalewitz said.
To do that, the city is peddling the idea of turning the area into a pedestrian shopping zone, similar to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The city would spruce up the street and add activities and entertainment to the mix of stores and restaurants, which include American Apparel, The Closet and Wahoo’s Fish Taco.
Closing the street to traffic would get rid of the cruising and cut pollution, Smalewitz said.
“If we don’t integrate downtown as part of the beach environment, I think the downtown could get lost,” he said.
Some favor the idea. Many people already park in the neighborhoods around Main Street and walk there.
If the street were closed, shoppers would park nearby and maybe take a trolley to downtown.
But some downtown businesses think the city is being too hasty.
Joe Shaw, owner of California Greetings gift shop on Main Street, says he could lose money if his customers aren’t able to drive up to his store. He also said he doesn’t think the “wine and cheese” crowd would come shopping downtown on the weekends.
Shaw said he’s not opposed to closing the street to cars. But the city seems to be pushing the idea without thoroughly studying the impact on businesses, he said.
Traffic already will be upset, he said, with the ongoing development of the Strand and Pacific City,massive retail and hotel projects in the downtown area.
Traffic now is affecting businesses near Fifth Avenue, which is closed due to construction on the Strand, he said. Those projects are expected to be finished in the next three to five years.
Huntington Beach Mayor Dave Sullivan floated the idea of a pedestrian mall a couple of years ago but the downtown business owners opposed it, Shaw said.
Main Street is different than Santa Monica’s Third Street, according to Shaw.
“Third Street was a blighted area,” he said.
Main Street has been redeveloped and is thriving, he said.
“Why are we messing around with success?” Shaw said.
Businesses could lose day-trippers, he said. The stores and restaurants also could lose business in the offseason.
And Third Street is the exception among pedestrian promenades, according to Shaw. It works because Third Street has plenty of nearby garages and theaters that draw people.
Huntington Beach may lose its theaters. The International Surfing Museum, now on Olive Street, may move there.
Shaw has started a blog, hbdowntown.typepad.com, to address the issue. He’s so fired up that he said he’s running for City Council.
Smalewitz said the city recognizes that businesses are concerned about the project. But officials intend to test the idea, he said.
In a few months, the city plans to close Main Street from Pacific Coast Highway to Orange Avenue from 3 p.m. on Friday to 10 p.m. on Sunday.
The city is accepting proposals from consulting companies for everything from design to parking. Smalewitz is spearheading a committee made up of three council members and some of the downtown businesses that are working on the logistics of the project.
It has work groups assigned to various tasks, including parking and traffic safety, street cleaning and maintenance, homeless and loitering, activities and marketing, budget and economic impact, and signs and beautification.
May Auto Sales Up
Orange County auto sales in May were up 2.5% from a year earlier and reversed April’s 11% drop.
That’s according to the Costa Mesa-based Orange County Automobile Dealers Association’s monthly new auto registration report, a barometer of sales in the county.
Some smaller brands posted big gains in May. Land Rover had the biggest percentage increase with sales up 142%. The county saw 211 Land Rover registrations, up from 87 a year earlier. Other big gainers were Saab, which saw a 44% increase, Porsche, up 36.5%, and Hummer, still going strong, with a 92% increase.
May’s gain helped lessen what’s been a down year so far for local auto sales. For the year through May, sales were off 6.5% (they were down 8.5% through April).
The biggest decliner for the year so far is Jaguar, which saw a 34% drop in registrations. Isuzu had the biggest percent increase, 69%, followed by Hummer, Land Rover and Hyundai.
On the luxury front, BMW was up 6% year to date, with 3,723 registrations. Lexus was up 3.4% with 3,985 new autos registered, followed by Mercedes with a 2.4% increase in registrations, or 4,676 autos.
