Artesia Boulevard may fall by the wayside in Redondo Beach as the city attempts to reclaim a piece of its own history.
The Redondo Beach City Council Tuesday night moved forward in its attempts to revive the Redondo Beach Boulevard name for, at most, a 2.2 mile stretch of Artesia Boulevard, reclaiming the street’s previous name. The next step in the process is a public hearing to then decide the project’s ultimate fate.
This would be the third renaming of the street in its history. The road was originally known as Gould Lane, after wealthy railroad developer Jay Gould, in keeping with the City’s tradition of naming roads after American tycoons, such as Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller. The name was later changed to Redondo Beach Boulevard in the 1930s, around the time the original Fire Station 2 was built at Redondo Beach Boulevard and Green Lane.
But in the 1960s, Caltrans’ westward expansion of I-91, the Artesia Highway, toward Pacific Coast Highway prompted the Artesia Boulevard name change.
In 2011, with support from then-District 3 Councilman Pat Aust, the Council unanimously passed a motion to research reviving the Redondo Beach Boulevard name. In 2013, two public workshops voicing significant opposition were held, and the matter was set aside until 2015.
According to city staff, following a May 2015 Easy Reader article reporting on the possible name change, the City of Manhattan Beach passed a resolution opposing the renaming of Artesia within its city limits. Their resolution also noted that a name change for one side of the street would be “confusing for the public.” The Cities of Hermosa Beach and Lawndale followed suit in July 2015.
The North Redondo Beach Business Association, which has supported the renaming effort, hopeful that it would kick-start revitalization of the Artesia corridor, which is, as Mayor Steve Aspel said, “always a work in progress.” A survey conducted by the organization and presented at the meeting noted that 86 percent of respondents, 118 out of 136 surveyed, were in favor of the name change.
Leland Hyde, owner of Kurt True Value Hardware and NRBBA Treasurer, is in personal support of the change.
“From a branding, retailer and business owner perspective, it’s important to have a sense of place…restoring the name should bring a better sense of place, tie the north back to the south and create a sense of overall community in all parts of the city,” he said. “If the neighborhood around me becomes more vibrant with a sense of identity…the change will be completely and entirely worthwhile.”
District 4 resident Julian Stern was one of the few voices of opposition, taking aim at the survey’s veracity. He said that 37 of the positive respondents did not own businesses or work on Artesia and that multiple employees and customers were counted in individual businesses, rather than owners.
“I don’t believe that Eddie, the assistant manager at Pep Boys, Martha from Burger King or Bertha from Subway are at liberty to speak for their company,” he said, noting that businesses that did not support the change did not have multiple respondents listed. “This is a vanity project…it’s something we don’t need, and it won’t bring great change.”
Councilwoman Laura Emdee motioned to receive and file staff’s report, create a resolution for renaming Artesia, and to set a date for a public hearing, which would notice all business and building owners along Artesia Boulevard. The motion passed unanimously. ER
