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Promoters envision renovated Westwood Village

Some merchants, students skeptical of improvements

By Allyssa Lee

The T. Heritage Art Gallery sits among a handful of empty stores on Westwood Boulevard, often unnoticed by passers-by.

But upon entering the gallery the signless facade gives way to a flourishing showroom of modern and contemporary art promoting a common theme of positive changes in the world.

It is the fulfillment of this theme that a lot of visitors are hoping will happen to Westwood, said owner Tim Heritage.

And though it is an old cliché, Westwood Village promoters said they'd like to see an instance of life imitating art happen here.

Under the direction of Tom Carroll, the Westwood Village Management Corp. ­ an agency that promotes the Village to the business and residential community ­ plans to renovate Westwood by bringing back the large crowds and thriving businesses that characterized the area years ago.

With the continued success of the Farmer's Market and the grand opening of the Circuit City at Gayley Center, Carroll hopes to restructure Westwood into a local attraction once again.

Despite some local skepticism among merchants and shoppers about spreading the Village so thin, Carroll said he was optimistic.

"We're trying to make it more of a restoration project for college students and up," Carroll said. "The strategy is to find a niche for who we are."

The Management Company's designs for rejuvenating the Village seem to have found favor with some store owners who expressed a positive attitude about the area's future.

"I feel that Westwood is in a transition right now, and the Village is like one big store in a way ­ it's got kind of a life cycle. Right now it's got sort of an upward trend," Heritage said.

But even though many merchants said they were confident about the Village's appeal, they questioned the current condition of the Village and its ability to recover from a sharp revenue decline over recent years.

"I believe the potential is here,"said James Warren, assistant manager of Tower Records. "But (the Westwood location has) been on a pretty steady decline for the last three years. The (store) is relying solely on clientele sales -- regulars ...We're not getting the pedestrian traffic. In others words, there's not enough people in the Village."

Many store owners and students attributed part of the low numbers in the Village to general frustrations with the area's parking conditions, citing the limited parking spaces and teeming parking enforcement.

"I was a teenager in the late '70s and early '80s and Westwood was always the place to go hang out ... (Now) it seems like a ghost town to me, especially at night," Westwood Drugs employee Manny Chevrolet said. "The biggest problem for 15 years is parking, and that's why a lot of people don't come."

Competition from the various shopping and dining centers in and around the area, including the Century City Shopping Plaza, Westside Pavilion, and Third Street Promenade have been deterrents to Westwood's increase in business, store managers said.

To tackle this competition, Carroll said Westwood is not going to be a young hip place for teenagers, but rather a "niche market for a cultural center," revolving around the Armand Hammer Museum and a planned annex to the J. Paul Getty Museum.

"Let Third Street be young and hip," Carroll said. "Let Westwood be compatible."

However, such a strategy may prove harmful to the Village's overall business, students said. Many mentioned a desire for new and fun things to do, rather than places to shop. Some visiting students suggested lit-up neon signs, peddlers, pubs, local bands, sidewalk sales and local festivals.

"Westwood isn't as popular as it used to be," said Tram Trinh, a third-year transfer student majoring in East Asian arts and cultures. "You don't really hear people say, 'Oh, let's go to Westwood tonight'. I love Santa Monica's (Third Street Promenade) because you have a whole lot of vintage shopping and a (contemporary) mall at the end of it. And at the other side of it there's a pier, there's Santa Monica beach. There's three things (to do) at once."

This sentiment, shared by some merchants, has brought the needs of the UCLA student population into the discussion. Many said they feel the Village's promoters should cater to students more, because they constitute a large mass of potential customers.

"The idea of maintaining the Village as an alternative to Beverly Hills is insane," Warren said. "I think what we need to do is go back to making it a place for students of UCLA the way it was back in the '60s and '70s because that's our core business ... We depend heavily on the UCLA student. The proximity of the campus is probably the only reason why the store is still open. Other businesses come and go, but UCLA is forever."

Nevertheless, Carroll remains undaunted. As former head of the Third Street Promenade revitalization project, which took eight years to complete, Carroll explained that the Westwood project has just begun.

Heritage also manages to keep his faith about the outcome of the Village: "I think in the long run Westwood has the ability to really draw a lot of people because in a day and age where you have all these malls, Westwood has older theaters, with a lot more character and style and it doesn't have that mall-type of atmosphere -- it has more of a character to it."

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