Council to Consider Tapo Street Changes

It probably won’t give Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade or Old Town Pasadena a run for their money, but Tapo Street could soon receive a few of the flourishes that make a shopping area appealing.

Think nostalgic light fixtures, beckoning palm trees and twinkling lights on either side of the thoroughfare, more attractive medians with lush landscaping and entrance monuments at Los Angeles Avenue and near the Ronald Reagan Freeway that give the street a unified feel.

Those are proposals for the first phase of an ongoing effort to revitalize Tapo Street, an area hard hit by the 1994 earthquake and store closures. The amenities could cost $1,032,672 from federal Community Development Block Grant funds and the city’s Lighting Maintenance District and Community Development Agency.

The Simi Valley City Council will be asked to approve the design and budget for the improvements at Monday night’s meeting. Council members will also be asked to approve a plan to shift leftover block grant funds from a street repaving program to the revitalization effort, pending approval from the federal Housing and Urban Development Department.

“This is an initial step,” Assistant City Manager Don Penman said.

“We’ll start the project sometime this spring and hope it will be completed by early summer,” he said. “That’s not too far away.”