Vivian Bowers says sales have jumped since she received redevelopment agency funds to re-vamp her dry cleaning business. (Courtesy of CRA/LA)
Things have been looking up for Central Avenue business owner, Vivian Bowers, owner of Bowers and Sons Cleaners.
Since she was awarded redevelopment agency funds to re-vamp her dry cleaning business, Bowers & Sons Cleaners, sales have increased to about 15 percent.
That has prompted other store owners in the area to make similar improvements.
“People are now excited. It’s revitalizing. It’s encouraging to want to do business over here,” she said.
Bowers says the storefront conversions — which includes with new lettering, window displays, awnings, and a fresh coat of paint — has brought a better vibe to the neighborhood.
“People — now it might be in my mind, but I do believe it — walk on our side of the street. They walk with their heads up high,” she said.
But the good times may come to an end if Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to eliminate state’s 400 redevelopment agencies on July 1 gets approved. As part of his January budget plan, the governor plans to do away with redevelopment agencies and hand over $1.7 billion of their funds to school district, to pay down the state's $28 billion deficit.
In response, city officials throughout the state are threatening to sue the governor over the lost funds.
The governor argues that K through 12 schools are in greater need of the tax increments that redevelopment agencies retain from increased property taxes that their projects generate.
That may mean other small business owners will never get a chance to upgrade their workplace with CRA funds.
“To have that take away is going to be devastating at best,” Bowers said. “Because the momentum will be lost. People will be discouraged.”
It may also mean a lost opportunity for redevelopment agencies to revive the Central Avenue area, which was once a teeming economic and social center. Jenny Scanlin, spokeswoman for the California Redevelopment Agency, disagrees with the governor’s proposal.
“I think this is the wrong time and the wrong thing to do to get a rid of a tool that every other state in the nation is using to try to get out of the recession that we’re in,” Scanlin said.
Part of the argument for dissolving the CRAs is construction that doesn't seem to help blighted areas, mainly high-end sites in downtown such as the Staples Center and upcoming Broad Museum.
Estela Lopez, executive director of Central City East Association says the tax increments that the redevelopment agency receives from the sites are needed to fund less lucrative projects.
“That’s the money that than helps the CRA to help clean up blight. So you do have to have some of those projects that perhaps are the more glittery ones that you hear about,” said Lopez.”
Aside from the storefront conversions, Central Avenue area benefited from other redevelopment agency projects. Scanlin says that includes a new Fresh & Easy supermarket, a renovated Mercado La Paloma marketplace, grocery store conversions, affordable housing units and building rehabilitations. The agency is also slated to construct a Clean Tech Corridor that will house businesses that focus on renewable energy.
“I think that is very reflective of the dollars spent from the redevelopment agency,” Scanlin said.
The fight over redevelopment agencies won’t let up anytime soon. Brown is still pushing to eliminate redevelopment agencies. Whatever happens, Central Avenue small business owner Vivian Bowers isn’t giving up. She urges the governor to not abandon small business owners and their plans to revive their community.
“Central Avenue was a bustling business area. And I know that with organizations like CRA, we can continue to grow and become what we once were. Which is a vibrant, self sustaining community.”
