Residents want beauty, too

MAGNOLIA PARK — With the formation of a business improvement district last summer, businesses owners in Magnolia Park pooled their resources to bring in more merchants and patrons through beautification and advertising efforts.

But some residents in the area are feeling left out.

The concern is that enhancement efforts will not reach some areas on the west end of Magnolia Boulevard, specifically, anything west of Pass Avenue — which includes Evergreen Street, Rose Street, Valley Street and Clybourn Avenue, area resident Lorena Mendez-Quiroga said.

“Nobody has really contacted us…. It’s like they forgot about us — we’re more like North Hollywood,” she said.

“We’ve seen a little bit of a boom over where Porto’s [Bakery] is. But we want to be a part of the beautification project — even if we have to put our own money, or whatever it takes — just so it looks nice.”

But since the Magnolia Park Property-Based Business Improvement District is comprised of a community of merchants who collect an assessment for improvements, beautification efforts do not specifically target residential areas, said Mary Hamzoian, a Magnolia Park operations coordinator for the Community Development Department.

Enhancement of the area’s business climate will benefit the neighborhood as a whole, even with something so simple as improving the experience of residents just walking down the street, said Ira Lippman, chairman of the business improvement district and a longtime Magnolia Park business owner.

“As merchants, we want to have these things, but we have to keep in mind that this is a neighborhood we share with the residents,” he said.

A group of 20 to 25 area residents have been meeting to discuss enhancements that they would like to see in their area, Mendez-Quiroga said.

At the encouragement of Burbank Community Development Department staffers, she will soon be bringing some of those ideas to a business improvement district meeting.

Many of the visible enhancements in Magnolia Park predate the creation of the business improvement district and were financed by grants the city received in the wake of the Northridge earthquake, City Manager Mary Alvord said.

The grants funded a complete face-lift on Magnolia Boulevard — for two blocks to the east and west of Hollywood Way — including landscaping, the installation of an informational kiosk, replacement trees and a reconstructed intersection, she said.

When the business improvement district’s planned improvements materialize, they are slated to stretch along Magnolia to the city’s border, which incorporates streets like Pass, Evergreen, Rose and Clybourn, she said.

“We were very insistent on going all the way to the border, so you didn’t have the sort of have and have-nots,” she said.

When the business improvement district’s plans start to take shape, they will be immediately noticeable, with enormous banners strewn along Magnolia with a light floral theme to capture the essence of the area, she said. “They’re going to be very pleasantly surprised about what I think is a really nice identity that not only identifies Magnolia as a business area, but ties into the residential — that this is a family friendly business area,” Alvord said.

Since May, the business improvement district is funding weekly sidewalk sweeping and monthly steam cleanings along Magnolia, Lippman said.

“We’re very happy to have that in the community,” he said. “I do think it benefits us, but it benefits the neighborhood, too — it just makes it easier to walk down the block.”