The idyllic peace of Azusa is typically punctuated by only the chime of church bells, but other sounds are coming to the tranquil L.A. suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Azusa, which will have two train stations on the 11.5-mile Gold Line Foothill Extension when the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority begins service March 5, is preparing for a wave of new businesses, mixed-use complexes and pedestrian-oriented development in a bid to make its downtown area a gateway destination for students, locals and military reserve personnel traveling by train to Azusa’s California National Guard armory. The Foothill Extension is expected to carry more than 13,000 passengers on an average weekday by 2035.
As on the Expo Line, which will allow passengers to travel the full 15 miles between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica when it opens in May, properties along Metro’s Gold Line have become increasingly attractive to developers as the Foothill Extension has come to fruition.
Still, large-scale development took noticeably longer to get underway in the San Gabriel Valley as investors waited to see whether current projects gain traction before offering up proposals fully funded with private capital.
“One of the challenges was just getting developers to take an interest in Azusa,” said City Councilman Uriel Macias. “In my opinion, we’ve passed that hurdle. Now we have developers calling us.”
In downtown Azusa near the rail station on North Azusa Avenue between West Foothill Boulevard and East Ninth Street, a handful of applications have been received for a roughly 2.2-acre mixed-use development site, frequently referred to as Block 36. A three-story parking structure on the north side of the tracks will feature 300 parking spaces for transit and city use. Petaluma’s Lagunitas Brewing Co. is also expected to open a production facility, with an initial capacity of more than 420,000 barrels of beer, roughly a mile away from the train station by spring of next year.
But Azusa is not the only place that will see development along the Foothill Extension.
A fenced-off dirt lot in Monrovia will become the Parks at Monrovia Station Square, a 261-unit complex on an approximately 3-acre property directly adjacent to the line. A transit-oriented development plan abutting the new Duarte-City of Hope Gold Line station has envisioned up to 400,000 square feet of office, 475 multifamily residential units and 12,000 square feet of retail space, while a 212-unit apartment complex near the Sierra Madre Villa station is scheduled for completion in May.
“The interest has been significantly more than what it was before,” said Craig Jimenez, director of community development in Monrovia, adding that hardly anyone even looked at the area five years ago. “There’s just a lot of different types of discussions that weren’t there before.”
Azusa rising
But a combination of factors, including land availability, a student population of more than 20,000 between Azusa Pacific University and Citrus College as well as proximity to the 210 freeway corridor, have made the tranquil city of Azusa, which lies roughly 15 miles east of Pasadena, a particularly aggressive pursuer of transit-oriented opportunities. The Gold Line’s APU-Citrus College stop is located at the eastern border of Azusa near the two college campuses.
The city even drafted a 264-page document, the Azusa Transit Oriented Development Specific Plan, to lay out development regulations, infrastructure requirements and implementation measures.
In addition to Block 36, which will likely become a mixed-use development with retail and office space, and the parking structure on the north side of the tracks, a third lot nearby known as A2 will eventually be sold to a developer to make way for retail space amenable to commuters, Macias said.
Meanwhile, a two-story Target Corp. store already takes up nearly an entire city block near the station. And an upscale planned community known as Rosedale, which includes upward of 1,000 homes, lies within two miles of the downtown Azusa station.
“There’s a lot of excitement going around this,” said Ginny Dadaian, director of community relations at Azusa Pacific, adding that she had watched the Foothill Extension progress over the last 12 years.
However, Patricia Ibrahim, a stylist at hair salon La Roux on Azusa Avenue, said that business and foot traffic plummeted during the many years of construction.
“Only the faithful stayed,” Ibrahim said on a recent Friday as test trains plied the tracks, adding that she hoped the Foothill Extension would bring back lost business.
Sam Tardino, who a year ago opened Italian kitchen Tardino Bros. about a block from the station at East Foothill Boulevard and Azusa Avenue, also expressed hope that things would improve.
“Business isn’t bad but isn’t great,” Tardino said, adding that he paid a slightly higher rent to be in the downtown area.
But he predicts an uptick in sales from Gold Line passengers who call in orders while on the train and pick them up as they walk to the parking structure.
“I’m looking forward to it and to seeing if it will truly make a difference,” he said. “Hopefully it will, but time will tell.”
