New Center Aims to Capture Spirit of City’s History, but Some Residents Still Miss Their Small-Town ‘Main Street’

Inez Fanning fondly recalls the days when she could stroll through the city’s downtown--past furniture shops, markets and pharmacies--and greet by name nearly everyone she passed.

On holidays, Fanning remembers, Boy Scouts would place American flags along the sidewalks. And outside the Red Lantern Theater, where Judy Garland once performed, vendors sold popcorn in purple and green striped bags for just pennies.

“It was a regular old-fashioned main street,” said Fanning, 80, whose family came to Brea at the turn of the century to seek jobs in the burgeoning oil industry.

Today, almost nothing exists of the downtown that locals affectionately called “Good Old Brea.” The land has been cleared for a $125-million redevelopment project that began in the mid-1980s.

One of the project’s aims is to recapture the spirit of that historic downtown, but many residents like Fanning speculate that the cost of progress may have been too great.

Many point with pride to the work already completed along Brea Boulevard: a contemporary shopping center with a Ralphs supermarket, Blockbuster video store, Starbucks coffeehouse and other stores built to replace old buildings, many of which had become blighted and inhospitable.

A block away, construction crews are working on the first of two 900-space parking structures, and later this year a contemporary promenade with European-style cafes, shops, fountains and a 22-screen cinema are to be completed.

City officials envision a bustling outdoor mall, similar to successful projects on Long Beach’s Pine Avenue or the Third Street promenade in Santa Monica. A few buildings from the old downtown will be preserved, including the Brea Hotel, which is now boarded up and on risers awaiting restoration.

But others say that the city acted far too hastily 10 years ago when it began buying and razing stores, homes and churches. Historic buildings such as the Red Lantern and Sam’s Place--a popular tavern that owner Seaton Greaves fought fiercely to preserve--were torn down, and entire neighborhoods were bulldozed.

“The Redevelopment Agency came in with its ugly claws and tore out the heart of Brea,” said Vince Mariner, 61, a resident since the early 1980s.

City redevelopment officials disagree.

By the 1980s, Brea Boulevard “didn’t have the kind of intimacy needed for a main street,” said Sue Georgino, the city’s redevelopment director. “During the community planning process, it was determined that [the area] no longer served that purpose.”

Some merchants who were displaced remain bitter about the loss of their shops and restaurants, though. The area had become run-down, they said, but that only happened after the Redevelopment Agency began buying up properties and offering owners incentives to leave.

Outlying strip malls and the Brea Mall had sapped some of the business dollars from downtown, they said, but the area was still viable.

Tim Brundige, who operates a glass business founded by his father in 1964, said he thinks mom-and-pop stores like his were targeted because they did not generate enough tax revenue to suit city officials.

“Maybe by some definitions we weren’t thriving, but it was Americana at its best,” he said. “We may not have been Wal-Mart or Jack in the Box, but we were all making good livings with reasonable overheads. . . . What we had to go through was completely devastating.”

Brundige Glass was one of the last operations to leave the old downtown. The family watched its sales plummet in the late 1980s and early ‘90s amid an exodus of other long-established independent businesses. The shop finally moved to a nearby building that the Brundiges lease from the city.

Brundige laments that Brea did not go the way of Orange, which preserved and restored its Old Towne district and has since been a location for the filming of movies such as Tom Hanks’ 1960s period piece, “That Thing You Do.”

“That’s just like Brea was in the mid-1980s--old and somewhat in its original state,” Brundige said. “And I don’t think that in anybody’s wildest dreams, people in Orange would ever think of doing what was done in Brea. Somebody would literally get killed.”

“Economically, I’m sure redevelopment will be a big gain,” he conceded. “But they’ll never recapture that small-town feel that people love. Maybe heritage and history don’t translate to economics.”

Other business people, however, view the redevelopment as a blessing. Doug Mann, owner of Brea Auto, said the $425,000 he was paid by the city to relocate gave him a rare opportunity to start over. His sales have gone up 20% since he moved in 1994, he said.

Even the president of the Brea Historical Society, Jane O’Brien, praised city officials for “really trying to preserve the history as much as they can.”

O’Brien noted that part of the redevelopment project will be Heritage Block, a 1.2-acre area to include the restored Brea Hotel, one of the city’s first banks, and facades salvaged from some of the other historical buildings that were torn down.

Longtime resident Fanning, whose childhood home was razed for the redevelopment, remains skeptical, though, that the spirit of “Good Old Brea” can be recaptured.

“Somehow I don’t think you can just create a town center,” Fanning said. “I think a real town center is something that happens over time, with the people who live and work there.”

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Brea Breaks Out

City officials picture a busy outdoor mall/promenade anchoring a bustling new downtown in Brea.

Brea Profile

Established: 1917

Motto: Changes every year; currently “Celebrate Life!”

Population: 35,100

Median household income: $51,253

Ethnicity: 77% white, 16% Latino, 6% Asian, 1% black

Major employer: Beckman Instruments, 1,100 employees

Landmarks: Old City Hall, extensive public art

POINTER: New downtown to include historic buildings, facades

Sources: City of Brea Communications and Marketing Department, Brea Chamber of Commerce, U.S. census