Winnetka is a West San Fernando Valley neighborhood long overshadowed by larger neighbors Canoga Park and Reseda. But it’s trying to reassert itself these days, and members of the business community are leading the charge.

After more than a decade of attempts, Winnetka finally received two signs last year demarking the neighborhood. Now there are plans to spruce up a bowling alley and hotel complex with the first Winnetka community and business meeting center. Meanwhile, a mile up the street, a car lot is being converted into a 95-unit apartment complex to bring affordable housing to the area.

Driving the change has been a jump in land values. The median-priced Winnetka home 10 years ago sold for under $200,000; today, it’s $450,000. Many longtime residents are cashing out and moving to other areas, while a new multi-ethnic generation of younger families is moving in.

Local businesses have not yet felt the full impact of these prices. Sandwiched between heavy commercial districts in Canoga Park and Reseda, these are mostly mom-and-pop establishments pretty much unchanged from 30 or 40 years ago. And the clusters of retail are so scattered that it’s difficult to reach them without a car, which explains why Winnetka has been slow to coalesce as a community.

“Winnetka just doesn’t receive the same type of recognition as Canoga Park and Reseda,” said L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine, who represents most of the community.

Early poultry farms

It’s a long way from Winnetka’s roots 80 years ago as a utopian “garden community” founded by chicken farmer Charles Weeks. (He chose the name Indian for “beautiful place” after a similar community he started in a Chicago suburb.) Weeks bought a mile-long strip of land between what is now Winnetka Avenue and Oso Avenue and sold off one-acre poultry farms in what became known as the Weeks Poultry Colony.

The colony foundered during the Great Depression, though many of the residents stayed on to set up their own shops. But the massive retail development that swept the San Fernando Valley in the 1960s and 1970s largely bypassed Winnetka, instead going to Canoga Park, Reseda and Woodland Hills. The closest thing Winnetka has to a shopping center is the Sherman Plaza at the corner of Sherman Way and Winnetka (originally the site of the Weeks Community Center). It has about 20 stores, including a TJ Maxx.

Winnetka’s identity continued to suffer as Canoga Park grew, in part because for decades it shared a postal ZIP code with its neighbor. As a result, “many people who lived in Winnetka didn’t even know it,” said Pauline Tallent, a local realtor and former president of the Winnetka Chamber of Commerce. It wasn’t until 1994 that Winnetka finally got its own ZIP code.

Though some stretches lie within a redevelopment zone, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency has focused most of its attention on Canoga Park and Reseda. Only a couple of businesses have received CRA funds to improve their fa & #231;ades and CRA officials say they have no immediate plans to expand that program.

There’s yet another reminder of how Winnetka still lies in Canoga Park’s shadow. The neighborhood’s most prominent business landmark is the Canoga Park Bowl, a bowling alley that adjoins a Best Western Hotel franchise on the southwest corner of Winnetka Avenue and Vanowen Street.

Owner Gene Giegoldt, who along with San Fernando Valley property owner Richard Gelb recently bought out their partners, plans to keep the bowling alley and hotel, and then add a row of shops on what’s now the parking lot.

“We hope to bring in stores like Starbuck’s, Jamba Juice or Quizno’s,” Giegoldt said. The project is still going through the planning stages; no deals with any retail establishments have yet been reached.

He also plans to upgrade a modest-sized auditorium between the hotel and bowling alley and turn it into a mini-convention center.

Giegoldt wants to capitalize on the proximity to the Orange Line busway that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now building through the San Fernando Valley. Set to open in late summer or early fall, the busway will pass about one-half mile to the south, still some distance from the proposed bowling alley/convention center.