By PAUL HUGHES
As a new downtown for Tustin takes shape at the city’s former Marine base, its old city center is getting a makeover.
Tustin’s Old Town on El Camino Real has seen new restaurants and eclectic shops with condominiums on the way.
The redevelopment is small compared to what’s going on at the former base, where a new downtown is being built “from the ground up” at Legacy Park, City Manager Bill Huston said. The development calls for offices, restaurants, shops, hotels and homes.
Old Town has a different feel,quaint, even sleepy. Walk along El Camino Real from Fourth Street to the shadow of the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway. Take side jaunts down Prospect Avenue, then Main Street, and you’ll catch the vibe.
It’s no massive Marine base redevelopment. But it’s part of a downtown revival that’s playing out across Orange County’s older cities. As with several other cities, Tustin has given its effort unique twists.
Absent the antique shops of Old Towne Orange and the pulsing beat of Fullerton’s club scene, Tustin has focused on what it’s known for: a nice, quiet place under tree-lined streets.
“Old Town is going to have its own niche,” Huston said.
Tustin is focusing on mainstays of redevelopment, restaurants and retail.
Huston rattles off the restaurants, old and new: Rutabegorz, Roma D’Italia, McCharles House (a tearoom), Black Sheep Bistro and Quinn’s Old Town Grill.
Quinn’s owner John Moore reworked a 1930s-era building, giving it “a little San Francisco-type feel,” he said.
The result is a “corner bar comfortable” prime steak and fish house with chefs from Morton’s and Houston’s. It opened in September.
“The response has been fantastic,” Moore said.
Moore lives in Orange. He’s not the only one to compare what Tustin is trying to do with what Orange has done.
“With more restaurants and retail coming in, Tustin is really behind making Old Town equal to Orange,” he said. “We’ll have lots of people on the street, lots of things to do, and bring Tustin up to that level.”
“We’re trying to breathe some life into it,” said former mayor Doug Davert, now a councilman. “We’d like to add some nightlife and some excitement,make it a destination for people going to eat or shop.”
One of the newest eateries, set to open this summer, is the second site of Costa Mesa’s The Beach Pit, a Southern barbecue joint owned by the son of former California Angel Doug DeCinces.
“Old Town has traditionally been a great place for restaurants,” Tim DeCinces said. “We’d been looking for another location to do events and catering. The timing was perfect.”
The Beach Pit is renovating and moving into an old auto repair shop called The Tustin Garage. The outside has a Quonset hut. The inside, DeCinces said, has 100-year-old exposed wood trusses.
“It used to be the only place in town you could get gasoline,” Tustin Mayor Lou Bone said.
Now the city is seeking stores to go alongside restaurants.
An old blacksmith’s shop has been converted into an architectural antiques store.
“They used to do sheet metal there,” Huston said.
Already in Old Town is Armstrong Garden Center.
The garden store attracts people shopping for shrubbery during the day, as well as weekend gardeners.
It has been in Old Tustin for three years, said Paul Burkhart, green goods manager.
“If you’re going to be anywhere in Tustin, it should be Old Town,” Burkhart said. “It’s a nice, hometown feel and a good fit.”
A lifelong Tustin resident, Burkhart said he wants the city to keep Old Town’s charm while continuing to expand.
Another store, The Acorn Naturalists, is a veteran at four years in a big brown Craftsman building on El Camino Real, selling science and nature educational items.
One patron describes it as “part gift shop, part science education.”
The store has everything from board games about the environment to stuffed animals, books and school supplies.
“Science supplies to schools is the core business,” said Martin Rigby, co-owner of the store founded by his wife Jennifer.
The Rigbys, both former teachers, have lived in Tustin for 26 years and have four kids in Tustin schools. A few years back they needed to grow their store, Martin Rigby said.
“We definitely needed to double our space, and wanted to help revitalize the area,” he said. “The city was happy to see us come in.”
They didn’t look anywhere but Tustin, according to Rigby.
He said he likes the slow pace: “Old Town Tustin is one of the sleepier old towns in Orange County. If you stand on any corner during the day, you won’t see anybody.”
The Acorn Naturalists acts as sort of an anchor for the area.
“The owners are Tustin people bringing it home,” Councilman Davert said. “It gives people a chance to see what’s going on in Old Town. Anything that gets people down there is good.”
Meanwhile, dirt is moving for 12 townhouses planned near Main and Prospect. The site is set to have two restaurants in front and a walkway behind with bricks from the former C.E. Utt Juice Co. building, which used to exist on the site.
Utt Juice, an early Tustin icon, has been closed for 25 years.
The project is part of Prospect Village by Newport Beach-based Pelican Properties.
Across the street, the city updated and expanded an old water district site, putting in wells and a reservoir.
Then it massaged the outside.
“We spent a lot of additional dollars to give it period architecture, with brickwork and a fountain,” Huston said. “We put our money where our mouth is.”
The city even got some public parking out of it, he said,always an issue when cities add shops and restaurants.
Tustin might develop a slight parking problem, Mayor Bone said.
But the choice, he said, is between leaving things as they are,quiet with “vacant lots and weeds”,or pursuing “something vibrant, where the residents can walk at night and have a pleasant evening.”
Property owners are looking at stores to add to the restaurants, Bone said.
“Good restaurants draw people,” he said. “And property owners decide what kind of shops will come in.”
Councilman Davert said he believes the area needs more foot traffic before shops can thrive.
“We need a critical mass,” he said.
Several vacant parcels remain.
“Lots of the vacant property needs to be developed,” Bone said.
The Tustin Chamber of Commerce is putting together a survey with the city’s redevelopment department to learn what’s needed, said Marisa Charette, executive director of the chamber, itself in Old Town.
Much rests with property owners. The Prescott family’s Prescott Properties owns much of the vacant land.
With a history in Tustin going back a hundred years, and large land holdings, “Most of the bare land you see is theirs,” said Rigby of The Acorn Naturalists.
That includes his store, the Armstrong Garden Center site and land next to it. The Prescotts also own the land under the weekly farmer’s market and other parcels.
To encourage development, Mayor Bone said Tustin is developing various programs,incentives for improving signs, possible parking solutions and the like.
“We do have incentives, and we waive a lot of fees on construction the city’s responsible for,” Bone said. “Some fees we can’t waive.”
A consultant’s report on parking in Old Town is in process, he said.
“All possibilities need to be totally looked at,” Bone said.
