After years of planning, the Whittier City Council has approved the final Greenleaf Promenade Project design, despite differences over the fate of trees and historical features in the Uptown Whittier business district.
The Greenleaf Promenade Project will stretch along three blocks of Greenleaf Avenue – from Hadley Street to Wardman Street.
During a Dec. 12 meeting, the council approved the final Greenleaf Promenade Project design while approving environmental compliance as part of the Uptown Whittier Streetscape Beautification Plan, which governs how the area’s streetscapes can be enriched.
“These approvals will allow us to move forward with construction drawings and get this project ready to build,” Kyle Cason, director of public works, said during the meeting.
The preliminary estimate for the promenade/streetscape project is $20 million, according to Assistant City Manager Shannon DeLong. An estimate for the construction timeline won’t come until construction documents are complete, which is what staff will begin working on now that the final design was approved.
Over the past three years, city staff, council members and residents have discussed the future design for Uptown Whittier.
Community outreach for the Streetscape Plan began with numerous meetings in 2017 through 2019.
The updated design was influenced by the outdoor dining set ups that resulted from the pandemic. It will allow the option of opening and closing the street to vehicles. Modular outdoor spaces can be used for outdoor dining, retail or public use. There’s a plan for an overhead gateway sign at or near Hadley Street and Wardman Street, updated utilities such as water meters and more.
Some of the most significant changes to Uptown are widening the sidewalks, changing historic light fixtures to a more modern design and removing ficus trees and replacing them with different types and more trees.
“With the new concepts and design elements added for the Greenleaf Promenade Project, especially the grading implementation of outdoor spaces and utilities in the area, preserving of the ficus trees has become impossible,” Cason said.
But a flashpoint in the visioning has been the many trees in the area.
The project design calls for the removal of 108 trees along Greenleaf – 83 of which are ficus – but will be replaced with 118 new trees and an additional 39,000 square feet of understory landscaping. Some of the replacement tree specimens include California Sycamore, Coast Live Oak and London Plane tree.
“Instead of going with one specific species, like we have now with the ficus for the majority of the trees, that presents problems going into the future,” said Steve Rydzon, the landscape architect from SWA working on the project.
Rydzon said that having a variety of species will create less of a risk if new pests begin to affect the city’s tree canopy.
“There’s been significant discussion in the community about the proposal of removing the trees and the replacement of those trees,” said City Manager Brian Saeki during the meeting. “I think it’s important to understand that the reason why we are not proposing to do a higher ratio is because the trees that we’re proposing to plant are larger specimens…these are going to be larger specimen 24, 30, 36 inch 48 inch box trees.”
The Promenade improvements fit within the goals of the streetscape plan while being in alignment with the Uptown Specific Plan, Cason added.
Cason explained that even if the project moved forward without removing the trees, the roots from the ficus trees would uplift the new construction quickly and become out of legal compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. New utilities and outdoor dining are also going to be where the trees exist.
“I think it’s important to also state that we’ve had several discussions with the City Council about what you’d like to see out on Greenleaf and as it relates to these improvements, and the direction that the council has provided to the staff up until this point, cannot be delivered if the trees are to remain,” Saeki said.
But some residents have raised concerns over the updated Promenade project, especially the removal of the trees.
“The Uptown Specific Plan of 2008 cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Mary Sullens, president of the Whittier Conservancy, said in a statement. “It was not just a blueprint for future development, but a real effort on the part of the community to define Uptown for that it is – the heart of historic Whittier.”
Sullens said that the original light fixtures are an integral part of the original infrastructure and need to be retained, and that replacing the original fixtures with “new retro matching lights” is an unnecessary expense that should not be borne by the tax-paying residents.
Part of the city’s plan in the original Uptown Specific Plan was to “line the perimeter of Uptown with trees” on Penn, Painter, Pickering, and Hadley, but it was not done, said Sullens. The opposite has occurred with canopies disappearing.
“This project was supposed to precede any removal of the ficus trees from the center core so that there would be a plethora of mature trees surrounding Uptown before any of the core trees were removed,” she said. “The removal of the ficus trees is supposed to be incremental and phased. There are timelines associated with all of these improvements that were never undertaken or completed by the city.”
Uptown business owners spoke in support of the new street renovations during the meeting, and said that the initiative is crucial for keeping Uptown vibrant. The trees actually put a financial strain on small businesses, they said.
Claudia Prado, owner of Shop the Runway Boutique, said she has had her business in Uptown Whittier going on 10 years in 2024.
“As an owner in Uptown and I know many business owners that are in Uptown, we know how damaging these trees are,” Prado said. “Twice my store was flooded because of the roots in the main and it happened on the worst weekend, it was Black Friday weekend. I had to shut down, I lost sales, and then it happened again. I know that people are concerned about the trees but we need this project, Uptown needs it, it’s time.”
The Whittier Chamber of Commerce, with its nearly 800 members, noted it will bring more customers and businesses to the area.
“Uptown is in dire need of renovations,” Justin Tipson, executive director of the Whittier Uptown Association said. “We think it’s the best for Uptown.”
The Whittier City Council went on to unanimously approve the final Greenleaf Promenade Project design.
“This is a community dream project come true,” Mayor Pro Tem Fernando Dutra said. “The entire city should get behind this and get excited about what’s going to happen in Uptown. It’s taken a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of staff time. It’s important that once we start it, we don’t stop it. It still takes money to make these things happen, as everybody knows, but certainly a priority for this council.”
With the approval of the final design, it is estimated that the city will have a bid out in early summer and begin construction in fall 2024, DeLong said. There are many steps in between, including a water project and coordination with businesses and property owners that will take place in advance of any commencement of construction as well.
The process will take about nine to 12 months to renovate one block at a time, with each of the tree blocks taking approximately three to four months to complete.
