More than two dozen Echo Park residents equipped with cameras and notebooks roamed Sunset Boulevard on a recent Saturday morning to identify the problems and discover the potential of the neighborhood’s downtown.
The exercise was the first major step toward a face-lift of the Sunset Boulevard commercial district. More than $300,000 from the Targeted Neighborhood Initiative-a city program to intended to revitalize Echo Park’s downtown area-has been budgeted to improve storefronts. That money could be spent on creating more attractive signage or restoring the historic features of some buildings.
Representative from a variety of local groups-from the Echo Park Community Garden to El Centro Del Pueblo-were invited to attend the Saturday morning workshop. Urban planners from the RRM Group of San Luis Obispo were on hand to lead the workshop in conjunction with Councilmember Jackie Goldberg and her staff.
After taking photos and notes about cluttered signage and favorite store fronts, residents-with markers, crayons and pens in hand-drew their ideas for improvement on large maps of the downtown area. Suggestions ranged from a landscaped median strip down Sunset to restoring vintage store fronts to building symbolic gateways.
The designers from RRM Group will now digest the residents’ ideas and responses and come up with a preliminary strategy to improve Storefronts and other features of downtown Echo Park.
Residents will get more opportunities in the months ahead to comment on those strategies and come up with more ideas.
