Main Street closures to begin in March

In the face of stiff opposition from downtown business owners, City Council members approved a pared-down proposal to close Main Street to automobile traffic on 12 Tuesday nights to attract locals and five festival weekends. The closures are set to begin in March.

The council rejected a proposal to close Main Street for 12 consecutive weekends, or a period of three months. Downtown business leaders condemned the three-month plan, citing lack of studies and loss of 88 parking spaces that made it difficult for them to support the proposal.

Mayor Dave Sullivan was the lone dissenting vote on the item.

“We’ll learn nothing from this experiment,” he said. Sullivan supported the 12-week closure.

People would be visiting the city during those festival weekends anyway, he said. He called downtown business members “whiners” who are “always asking for more.”

The Main Street Closure study committee’s report proposed closing about three blocks of Main Street, from Pacific Coast Highway to Orange Avenue. The committee was formed in June to study and oversee the project.

Sullivan was disappointed with the scaled-back plan that was approved Monday.

“We are afraid to do anything and when a small cadre of the business leadership asks us to jump, a majority of the council asks how high?”

But members of the downtown business improvement district board also didn’t shy away from using tough language. Local businessman Bob Bolen described the Main Street closure as “the most ridiculous idea I have heard of in a long time.”

Other members said the proposal was taking a direct hit at their livelihoods.

“Our pedestrian mall is really the pier,” said Stephen Daniels, owner of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and presi- dent of the downtown board.

Previous efforts to close Main Street have failed, said Ron McLin, owner of Longboard restaurant.

“If we close Main Street, we will lose the Surf City USA energy down there. It’ll become very quiet,” he said.

Downtown residents attended Monday’s council meeting to voice concerns about traffic spilling over into their neighborhoods and bringing up parking and noise issues.

“One of the obvious difficulties in doing anything with Main Street is it is a built-out downtown and parking is a premium,” said Stanley Smalewitz, economic development director who headed the ad-hoc committee.

“The problems with Main Street are difficulties that downtown businesses and the council will have to deal with sooner rather than later,” he added.

Councilman Keith Bohr suggested revisiting closing Main Street when Pacific City and the Strand projects in downtown are completed. “I see a lot more questions than answers,” he said.

Closing Main Street with the backing of its stakeholders — the downtown merchants — was crucial to its success, Councilwoman Debbie Cook said.

“I don’t think Main Street is as close to a pedestrian mall as McDonald’s is to a fine-dining restaurant,” she said, adding that to ensure that the closure works, businesses had to buy into the idea.

Councilwoman Jill Hardy agreed. “It needs to be done right or it will be another failed experiment and then it will never happen again. This way, we’ll get more questions answered.”

The five seasonal events around which Main Street would be closed to automobiles include the Woody car show in March; the May fest (along with Mother’s Day celebration at Pier Plaza) in May; the Surf & Art Walk (tying in to the surf contest) in September, Patriots weekend with the air show in October; and the holiday lighting for the pier from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2.