Downtown Ghost Town

The holidays are always good in San Pedro. Since it is a small town in a big city, and most people stay here for the holidays you can catch a more relaxed town vibe. The only problem is that you have to go out of town to do most of your holiday shopping. The Del Amo mall was a zoo this year. Tons of people, no parking. I did try to do some of my shopping in town, but half the store fronts were closed. And of the store fronts that were open a good number were thrift shops, lower than Target retail shops (almost garage sale or bazaar type stores), or high end art shops. There were no medium level stores. I do think the San Pedro Chamber of commerce a(http://www.sanpedrochamber.com/) needs to do more to make downtown San Pedro more vibrant. Below are Just a Guys suggestions:

- Bring in a big retailer to downtown to form the hub. A Kohls for example. Not all downtowns need a big retail store, but all downtowns need a reason to go downtown. Restraunts are great, but you need money to go out to eat with your families, and you can't expect a town of 80,000 to do that every day.
- Zone 6th and 7th streets with a better mix of retail stores. There are too many low end stores to make it worth the trip to go shopping downtown. I would suggest that the San Pedro Chamber members buy and play Sim City to get a better appreciation of how to set up a good retail mix. As it stands today, the shops don't feed off each other, they all stand alone.
- Move the adult center out of down town. I do like the fact that there is housing above the shops, but do I really need a senior center downtown? It adds no foot traffic and actually is dirty enough to disuage traffic.
- Provide core business hours for down town. You would expect that the holidays would be brisk with shopping traffic, but all the shop owners work independently. It would be good to know that all shops would be open from 10:00 - 4:00 every day.
- Remember that cruise line traffic will not save down town. It has not done so to date, and it will not in the future. Pedro is for San Pedrans. You can't expect tourist to go down town when the residents that live here won't go downtown. Tourists don't like shopping in a ghost town any more than the locals. Also, the cruise lines are and will be a long walk from down town. Waiting for trains or the red car to feed people to downtown will be a long wait. Besides, when someone spends a lot of money to go on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera what reason do they have to buy souveniers from San Pedro when they want to buy Catalina or Mexican momentos.
- Remember that the Port is about the Port. They will do what they want in their best interest. Expecting them to help revitalize downtown would be nice, but they are not obligated to do so. As such, San Pedrans need to fend for themselves.
- Re-fashion the new housing downtown to better serve the community. I would market the lofts as college housing (to help our kids living in town), or change the loft structure to better match what families expect from a home. Building the lofts makes sense from a business perspective (higher unit count), but the expectation that San Pedro would pull in a bunch of single people like Redondo Beach was unrealistic.
- Add a little more parking to better support the Warner Grand. I know the Warner Grand has problems staying afloat, but lack of safe, close parking hinders the amount of attendance the venue could have.
- Clean up the vacant lots downtown to make them usable or to make them small parks. Nothing says urban plight more than an unkept vacant lot.
- Work to more fully populate the downtown store fronts. There are still quite a few empty store fronts. The San Pedro Chamber should get the owners together to develop a retail/rental approach to help motivate businesses to relocate or to start in downtown. Stores feed off each other. Having more stores will raise all boats.

These are just some thoughts from a Guy from San Pedro. The free parking downtown during the holidays has been good. Now, if we only had a reason to go downtown.

Happy Holidays

Just a Guy from Pedro

Port vs Pedro

It should be no surprise that the Port of Los Angeles rejected the plan for a new shipyard. I am sure that the cost benefit analysis for the use of the land did not pan out. I am sure that the Port believes they can make more money using the land for more containers. The problem is that no one knows how to put a price on the value of jobs to the community, or the value of job diversity to the community, or the value of brining back a once dead industry to the community.

The port has once again put the Port above the community. Having a means to diversify the San Pedro job base would have been good for the community. Having a means to diversify the job base could mean higher skilled labor in the community. Having a diversified job base would help keep the community going in tough times like when the container business slows down.

Where are the community representatives on the Harbor Commission? Where is the local representation? It does not exists enough. And it does not exist to the extent necessary to ensure a good balance between the Port and the community it resides in and is surrounded by. The Port is a business, but a business that was created by the community it resides in. That link has been lost.

I hope the Los Angeles and San Pedro communities speak up. The future of our town requires a diverse job base that can handle slow downs in any one industry. The future of our town requires the creation of new higher skill jobs. San Pedro families need jobs that require more from our children than non-high school level educations. We can't expect our children to finish school when the jobs in the community do not require it.

Please San Pedro speak up.

Just a guy from Pedro