Just a few years ago, the dirty alleyway off Hollywood’s Selma Avenue was graffiti-ridden and speckled with potholes, a place where drug addicts were known to shoot up.

Now, 20-somethings in designer jeans sip chardonnay and craft beers in the quiet red-brick alley, which reopened this year with new landscaping, green succulents and twinkle lights.

After four years and more than $800,000 in renovations, the 500-foot-long alley east of Cahuenga Boulevard is becoming a pedestrian-friendly destination, where five restaurants have opened dining patios this year and at least four more are preparing to do the same.

Last week, sausage restaurant Berlin Currywurst opened a location on Cahuenga that features a patio and beer garden facing the alley. Husband-and-wife co-owners Hardeep and Lena Manak, Berlin transplants who opened their first location in Silver Lake nearly two years ago, had been searching for a spot with ample outdoor dining space and strong foot traffic – and they knew immediately that the location on the alley was perfect.

“We wanted to set up a magical garden and the alley was great; it provides a great circulation of people,” he said. “It’s a similar set-up to Berlin, where people walk around. And it comes alive at night and that’s unique in L.A. for people to be walking around at night.”

The pedestrian-friendly East Cahuenga Alley, known as the EaCa Alley, behind popular restaurants such as St. Felix, the Velvet Margarita and Kitchen 24, is the first of its kind in the city of Los Angeles.

Spearheaded by the business improvement district and local business owners, and funded in part by a $785,000 grant from the now-disbanded Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, the improvement has turned the former trash-strewn alley into a landscaped pedestrian walkway aimed at creating dining patios for adjoining restaurants. Local business owners and stakeholders hoped it would emulate those in Old Town Pasadena or European cities.

The early success of EaCa Alley has prompted business owners along the alley on the west side of Cahuenga to explore creating a similar walkable dining alley on that side of the street. One developer has already drawn up renderings.

Businesses along the revamped east alley are seeing immediate returns from the project.

John Arakaki, who owns St. Felix, said his restaurant has seen at least a 30 percent increase in business since opening its patio onto the alley. He believes that the growing residential population in the Hollywood area is bringing more locals.

“People don’t have to go outside the neighborhood to have a quality outdoor dining experience; incorporating that uniqueness and beauty that we have out here has been a big selling point,” he said. “We have special events and they all want alley seating.”

Total makeover

More than a dozen businesses on Cahuenga touch the T-shaped east alley, running north from Selma Avenue.

For many years, though, the alley was dirty and uninviting. David Gajda, who bought the building at the northeast corner of Cahuenga and Selma about 14 years ago, said there was a needle exchange in his building, so drug users would sometimes get high in the alley. He also saw homeless people use the alley as a bathroom.

“We had to have the building steam-cleaned once a week,” he said.

He installed an alley gate to try to cut down on crime and created the Cahuenga Corridor Association – before the Hollywood Business Improvement District existed – to try to turn the area into an entertainment and media district. He later joined the BID.

Coincidentally, Hollywood BID Associate Executive Director Sarah MacPherson, who was not available to comment, had been exploring the possibility of renovating alleyways in Hollywood when she learned of this particular alley.

Kerry Morrison, executive director of the Hollywood BID, said that her group thought the alleys could help them achieve their goal for the neighborhood.

“We want people to be able to eat outside and to have nooks and crannies in Hollywood to visit and hang out,” Morrison said. “The vision of Hollywood is to become a very pedestrian-oriented neighborhood and to activate as much public space as possible. The alleys have the potential to really be kind of a hidden gem.”

The Los Angeles City Council formally dedicated the alley as the city’s first pedestrian mall in a July 2009 ordinance to allow public access and restrict car traffic.

With funding primarily from the CRA, renovations began in early 2011, and included repaving the street and removing potholes, stagnant water and trash containers. The concrete roadway was replaced with brick and gravel so water can seep into the ground instead of pooling. Business and property owners, including Gajda, who contributed $50,000, paid to install seating, lighting and landscaping. Businesses still have access to trash bins, but they are farther away.

The renovated alley opened in February this year. Restaurants can apply for revocable permits for up to 10 feet behind their building to set up tables and chairs and serve food and alcohol.

St. Felix, Kitchen 24, the Velvet Margarita and Couture have secured permits to open patios on the alley, and others are in talks with the city, Morrison said. Berlin Currywurst opens into the alley, but was not required to get a permit because its patio is on its property. Still, Manak might apply for one soon.

“For now, we have our patio and for the next step, we are planning to have everything expand in the alley,” he said.

Gajda is in negotiations with the weekly farmers market, held at the opening of the alley, to operate a spice market in the alley on Sundays and with local tour groups to add the EaCa Alley to their list of tourist stops.

Business owners say crime has dropped dramatically and that the alley is helping change the vibe of the street from a one-stop nightclub location into a leisurely scene for strolling and a destination for dining.

“Fifteen years ago, it was urban warfare and now you walk around and go where did all these people with strollers and dogs come from?” Gajda said. “The crazy people that used to be a common thing around there – they’ve been replaced with an urban hipster family.”

West alley

Business owners on the west alley, which remains mostly a concrete, trash bin-filled space, have taken notice.

Developer Richard Heyman, who owns property at the northwest corner of Cahuenga and Selma, plans to build a $45 million Hampshire Hotels & Resorts brand Dream Hotel, similar in quality to the W Hotel, with developer Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. He envisions a completely renovated alley with dining patios, open space and an area for special events. He also wants to add an entrance into his hotel from the alley.

Heyman said he expects a number of business owners to help pay for it.

“We would all benefit,” he said.

Heyman, who has drawn up renderings of what his west alley could look like, hopes to begin renovations as soon as next year. He said he has already received approval for his restaurant Aventine, on the west side of Cahuenga, to use the alley for dining. Neighboring music venue Hotel Café already uses the alley for an entrance. He plans to apply for his nightclub AV to have access to the alley as well.

The EaCa Alley Association is supportive of the plan. In fact, it’s in discussions with West Cahuenga stakeholders to become part of its association. They are also encouraging the group to call the alley WeCa Alley, for West Cahuenga Alley, Gajda said.

Tyler Stonebreaker, chief executive of brokerage Creative Space who represented Berlin Currywurst in its new lease, said that renovations are bringing new tenants into the corridor because of the increased safety and growing trendy scene.

“Taking what are otherwise seedy alleyways and bringing life to them is great for restaurants, visitors and regulars,” Stonebreaker said. “It’s an area, that if left to its own devices, could go down the wrong path. Reactivation of the alleys is good way to control activity and encourage people to spend more time.”