A Dying Breed

By Teresa Rochester

Within this city there is town.

The town's main and only street is a dusty strip of broken down asphalt, wide enough for two cars to barely pass each other. Like the city, they too have a parking problem. The stretch of asphalt separates two rows of dilapidated, low-slung buildings, joined at the hip by shared walls.

The townsfolk, like the buildings, are weather beaten, worn and baked brown by a life of working outside. Some of the town's residents have been around as long as the buildings.

There's ol' Schmidty, the tile man well into his 80's, whose father was an original settler back in '46. The Smith boys -- Ron, Glen and Jim - (now near retirement age), took over the electrical business back when their dad died in '63. Then there's E. Bruce, who'll tell you he and his gun shop - the city's last --have been around for only 28 years.

Welcome to 2834 Colorado Ave. Like many small towns, its days are numbered.

The cabinetmakers, tile-cutters, welders, electricians, builders and mechanics that inhabit the 50-some-odd ramshackle businesses behind the walls of Colorado will soon be swept up in the entertainment/high tech wave that is sweeping west across the center of the city, changing its face and character with each new development.

Word among the complex's tenants - few of who own computers -- is spotty at best. Some have heard construction will get underway in October, or maybe at the beginning of next year. Mike Knox, owner of S&M Custom Cycle, has heard the property is in escrow and evictions may come in January 2001.

"We've been told it's coming down," said Knox, who customizes Harley Davidson motorcycles. He stands with his tattooed arms crossed before the 15 tons of metal and machinery in his shop, which he's already planning how to move. "All the artisans, fabricators and craftsmen are being forced out of this city. This is one of the last stands."

A thick manila folder in the city's planning department contains the proposed specifics of what awaits the fate of the 102-foot by 640-foot, prime parcel of property on the corner of Colorado Avenue and Stewart Street. If built, it would extend the city's high-tech corridor, which stretches from Sony on 20th Street, another block closer to the city's border.

Colorado Creative Studios, LLC. and architect John Rock, who filed the plans with the city on April 10, are proposing to demolish 19,000 square feet of the existing buildings on the rear half of the property to build a 29,500 square foot entertainment and post-production facility. The new facility would be two stories tall and boast one level of basement parking with 150 spaces.

The currently proposed plans for the site have been scaled back considerably. Originally, the project called for all 40,000 square feet to be used for the entertainment complex. With the project now coming in at less than 30,000 square feet, developers can bypass the Planning Commission.

"The high tech industry is running everybody out of here," said Paul Richardtz, owner of Domino Body Shop, which restores classic cars.

Built in 1946 and called the Bay Builders Exchange, the rows of businesses at 2834 Colorado Ave., served as home for the city's burgeoning building trades and have changed little with time. Ron Smith of Smith Electrical remembers how a secretary fielded telephone calls for all of the businesses out of her office at the front of the complex. Several times throughout the day she would post the messages on a hanging board outside her office.

"It was made up of people who did building trades. It's always been a trade place," said Smith, sitting at his desk in his narrow office. "It's sort of the same as it was. It's amazing it's lasted so long. This is considered nothing. We've seen a lot of places come down.

"We've known them for a long time," said Smith of the other businessmen in the complex. "But now our days are numbered."

Smith, who like many of the tenants learned his trade growing up in Santa Monica, feels the city has no need for small entrepreneurs who work with their hands.

"We have the feeling that they're against small businesses like mechanics," he said. "I don't even know if they know we're in here."

Out on the dusty strip of asphalt a Snap Tools truck rumbles by and workmen shout to each other up and down the strip. This town may not have a government or infrastructure, but its inhabitants share a common, and often colorful, history.

There have been scandals behind these walls, and triumphs, fires and deaths. There was Gary who was found dead in his motorcycle shop after a bout with cancer, and the man who hung himself "over some foolishness with a woman."

"It's too bad," said Richardtz, whose run his body shop for eight years. "It's like the last little hole in the wall. It closes and then I lose a whole bunch of friends. There's a lot of people here. It helps keep money in their pockets."

Richardtz squints into the sun and talks about the future. Behind him in his garage is a gleaming red 1969 convertible Mustang that he's built from the ground up. The way he figures it, he can't stay in Santa Monica - "it's so expensive." So he's already looking for a new place to rent in the valley, maybe Northridge, something closer to home in an area he believes will be more friendly to small businesses.

"They're making money," Richardtz said of the city's changing tax base. "Now that they're done with us, they have all these businesses stacked on top of each other. Hopefully it will bite them back when they loose all the trade people. They [the city] just don't like it [the complex]. It's a hazard to them. It's not pretty."

Towards the entrance of the complex E. Bruce sits out front of Pacific Cartridge, the gun shop he has had in the complex for 28 years. Business has been slow lately, E. Bruce says, mainly because of tax time.

Inside the city's last gun shop, next to a barrel of smokeless gunpowder, sits a box of bumper stickers that read "Guns don't cause crime any more than flies cause garbage." A price of $1.50 has been scratched out with black ink and marked down to .50 cents. Guns, locked in cases behind a counter, have been marked down as well.

"Nobody knows anything," said E.Bruce about the upcoming sale. E. Bruce is sure he won't stay in Santa Monica. His is the sole gun shop left in the city. "The city of Santa Monica doesn't want me to relocate anywhere. The small businessman is through anywhere."