Signal Tribune Newspaper

BY NICK DIAMANTIDES
Staff Writer

About 225 people attended a public meeting at the Long Beach Petroleum Club Monday night to discuss possible developments in the Bixby Knolls area during the next five years. Sponsored by the 8th District City Council Office, the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association and the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency (RDA), the event featured presentations by Aldo Schindler, RDA project officer, and Dolores Palma, partner in the Hyett Palma business-consulting firm based in Alexandria, Virginia.
Hyett Palma is under contract with the RDA to prepare a market analysis and economic enhancement strategies for the Bixby Knolls area. Building on the firm’s original study, completed in 1993, the upcoming report will help guide development in the area’s commercial corridors between now and 2014. The company is now in the process of gathering data for the report, which will primarily focus on assisting existing businesses and attracting new businesses to Bixby Knolls.
“I have not seen a turnout like this since the 1980s, when we were fighting the airport,” said 8th District City Councilwoman Rae Gabelich. She praised the audience members for their willingness to get involved in the city’s planning process.
Schindler, who oversees the RDA’s north project area, told the audience that the agency’s goals are to build new structures and improve the business climate in the north project area. “To help us plan out the next few years and how we can enhance the commercial corridors in the Bixby Knolls area, we have invested resources in hiring Hyett Palma,” Schindler said. “We spent all day today working in break-out sessions with various stakeholders and chatting with them about what their vision was for the area, and our consultants are going to spend the entire week going through the area and assessing it.”
He added that later this week Hyett Palma personnel would meet with agency officials to present their preliminary findings, before going back to the company’s headquarters. “They are going to spend the next couple months producing a very comprehensive report on what they saw and heard,” Schindler said. “They will chart out a strategic plan for the Bixby Knolls area.” He explained that later this year the consultants will come back with a completed report, which will be presented to the public at a meeting similar to the one that took place Monday evening.
Palma told the audience that getting input from the public was a vital component of the study her firm is undertaking. “The second piece of the enhancement strategy is a market analysis so that we make sure that the vision and the strategy are grounded in economic reality,” she said. “The third piece of the strategy is a recommended course of action intended to move the commercial corridors toward your vision and to enable them to take advantage of the economic opportunities that are revealed in the market analysis.”
After her introductory remarks, Palma walked the audience through a list of questions designed to gauge what local residents and business owners want to see in Bixby Knolls in terms of business development. She reminded the audience that the areas her company is studying are the commercial corridors within the boundaries of Long Beach Boulevard, Del Amo Boulevard, Orange Avenue and Wardlow Road.
During the almost two-hour discussion period, audience members answered the following questions: What kind of experience would you be able to have in the Bixby Knolls of 2014? What would be the mix of uses found in Bixby Knolls? What kinds of goods and services would you be able to find there? Who would the customers and users be of our successful Bixby Knolls in five years? What would you like the image of Bixby Knolls to be five years from now?
Audience members made about 100 suggestions, and Palma dutifully wrote them down on the poster-size pages of a sketchbook.
While some disagreements surfaced during the question period, most audience members seemed to agree that making the Bixby Knolls business corridors more aesthetically pleasing and pedestrian friendly were of paramount importance. Many attendees also expressed their wish that more quality retail shops and restaurants locate in Bixby Knolls. “I would like to see a logical mix of goods and services so that residents don’t have to leave the area to get what they need,” one woman said. “Let’s keep the money at home.”
Neena Strichart, Signal Tribune publisher, reminded the audience that one way to improve the area is to support the local newspaper. “When we have paid advertising and other support, we can tell our readers more about what is going on in the area,” she said. “When more people know about Bixby Knolls, more people will shop and dine here, and that will benefit everybody and provide the resources to pay for the kinds of changes everybody would like to see.”