By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large

Streetscape revamp near completion

La Mesa business owners, citizens and city officials say the long-planned improvement on La Mesa Boulevard in La Mesa Village are all but done, pretty much on budget and on schedule. That’s good news indeed for some of the business owners who say the year-long street construction has had impacts on their operations, despite efforts to make it as painless as possible.

La Mesa Public Works Director Greg Humora says the city had to make a choice about that.

“What we, and the public, decided was best was to do a block-by-block phased approach where we do half of the street, and one block at a time. That allows for the other half of the street to be open for parking and open for through traffic. And we created pedestrian zones within the construction zones so that even though they’re working, the businesses are still open.”

The alternate plan, he said, was to shut down the entire street all at once which would have made the project’s timeline shorter but would have also caused “more significant impacts” to businesses in the Village.

For the most part, the block-by-block approach seems to be working for most people — but not all.

“It’s hurt us badly. Our business has really dropped off through this,” said Lupe Marrujo, manager of the Por Favor restaurant. “If the other restaurants in our group hadn’t helped us through, we might not have made it.”

Similar thoughts came from Carol Tolosko, who runs Centifonti’s and Konnichiwa Sushi. “A lot of us are losing money through this. We’re down 50 percent in one place, and almost two-thirds in the other. Right now, we can’t even get temporary railings so we can serve outside. Some people still want to eat outdoors, even with the construction noise and dust.”

Other business owners have a more optimistic view of the streetscape improvements.

“I’m not a walk-in business. People come here with appointments, not just cruising,” said Terry White of Golden Artistry Jewelry. “But it’s still very nice to see this ending and seeing what what [the improvements are] going to look like. It’s been needed for a lot of years.”

The streetscape project to revitalize La Mesa Boulevard between Fourth Street and Acacia Avenue really began back in 2008 when the design work began. Then the public hearings began and a bidding process for who would get the construction contract, which was eventually granted to Dick Miller Inc. for a bid of just under $7.5 million.

Funding for the project comes from a variety of sources: A SANDAG smart growth incentive grant for $2 million; $1.3 million from downtown parking meters; some Transnet money; some money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; an estimated $650,000 from the Transit Development Administration because of the project’s proximity to the trolley and bus stops; and $250,000 from wastewater fund reserves.

Humora said he expects the project’s final cost to be very close to the original bid cost by the contractor, despite some unexpected setbacks that came up during construction.

“We ran into some underground fuel storage tanks that had been there since the 1920’s that were underneath the sidewalks that we didn’t know were there,” he said. “You can look at old photos and see there were gas stations there. Back in the day, the gas stations put the tanks underneath the sidewalk. For whatever reason, previous projects did not remove them.

The construction crews had to remove five 500-gallon tanks from under sidewalks along La Mesa Boulevard. Three tanks were found between Third and Fourth streets and two more were found east of Fourth. There was no fuel in the damaged tanks but the city had to bring in a hazardous material contractor in to abate them as well as get the county to clear the site.

“The coordination worked really, really well between our contractor, the hazardous material contractor and it barely slowed us down,” Humora said.

Keeping to the schedule and not getting slowed down is important for the city because of the upcoming Oktoberfest on Friday, Oct. 2 and Saturday, Oct. 3. “This will be the second Oktoberfest run in concert with the project. That’s when we have the most amount of people in the downtown La Mesa so that’s when our biggest concern is for pedestrian safety and jobsite safety so we stop construction during that time.”

Last year, there was only one block finished before Oktoberfest. This year, all the sidewalks are expected to be finished and the only work left to be done after is to install the enhanced crosswalks, plant trees, re-asphalt the street and paint the stripes for the street and parking spaces, which should only take about a month to finish.

“I really need to be out of there by Thanksgiving,” Humora said.

That should be good news for the businesses like Por Favor and Centifonti’s that have struggled during the streetscape project. And it is also good news to the future businesses in the Village, as well.

Chris Jacobs, the acting community development director for La Mesa, acknowledges that there have been some vacancies along La Mesa Boulevard over the years, but thinks the updated and beautified La Mesa Village will be a place that businesses will be more interested in.

“We’ll certainly be getting the word out among the business community that things have changed in the Village,” he said. “We think it will be a good sales tool to revitalize the area and the city.”

—Editor Jeff Clemetson contributed to this story.

—Doug Curlee is Editor at Large. Write to him at [email protected]