PBID Proposes Sign for Downtown San Pedro, SP Residents are Critical

Three options for a proposed downtown San Pedro sign. Renderings courtesy of the San Pedro Historic Waterfront Business District

San Pedro has been given a choice of what sign it wants to welcome visitors to downtown San Pedro — but critics say all the choices are too similar.

The proposed sign will go on 6th Street and Harbor Boulevard. The San Pedro Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District, or PBID, is financing the sign. The PBID put three choices for the proposed sign’s design on its website. In addition, the website has a survey where people can rank them. Alan Johnson, a representative of the PBID, encouraged people to vote at the Feb. 21 meetings of both the central and coastal San Pedro neighborhood councils. The PBID will use the design that gets the most votes.

Gianine Rizzi, a consultant for the PBID, said that the three designs are very similar. The basic differences are between the shapes and the fonts. They have the same color scheme and materials.

“We wanted it to communicate a very straightforward message, not getting too cluttered with too much verbiage,” Johnson said.

Shannon Ross, board member of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, asked why the survey did not have an option for people who dislike all three designs. 

“I absolutely cannot support this,” Ross said. “Many community members have expressed their distaste for this specific design.”

Ross said she wants a fourth option for a completely different design.

“We’re given three options that essentially look the same,” Ross said.

Johnson said the designs were created by a five member committee, including three members of the PBID and two community members, including Linda Grimes, executive director of the Waterfront Arts District.

“The intention when we asked Linda to join us, [was] that she would, as much as possible, as anyone could represent artists, that she was in touch with the artists’ community,” Johnson said. 

Johnson said that the PBID would be paying for this sign out of its own budget, which is $1.3 million per year. The money comes from businesses in downtown San Pedro.

“These dollars that are going to go toward this sign are 100% BID stakeholders’ dollars,” Johnson said. “There’s no public money that goes into this.”

Johnson said that the business owners decided they wanted to spend about $250,000 on this, which is the project’s approximate budget.

Ross pointed out that even though the PBID would be paying for it, the sign would still be on public property, and argued that it was a community sign.

Johnson said that one of the main objectives of the sign was to alert tourists and visitors of the business district’s existence and location.

“You really don’t know there’s this beautiful point, little downtown, just up a few blocks,” Johnson said. “It’s not really visible. … So it’s the business district’s way of saying, hey, we’re up here.”

Johnson said the sign is not a public art piece, it’s just to attract people to the business district. He said the sign is designed to be simple, and to match with the older buildings nearby, such as the San Pedro Municipal Building and the LA Maritime Museum.

“We’re not trying to fool anyone that it’s been around forever,” Johnson said. “But we wanted it to be very compatible with those buildings that it looks like of its time.”

The sign was originally going to be a full arch, connecting on both sides of the street. Johnson said the reason it was changed to half an arch is because of a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power vault on the south side of the street.

“If we were to move it far enough west to clear the vault, we’d be about another 35 feet back,” Johnson said. “And we felt that’s very important to get it as close to Harbor Boulevard as we can because that’s really the traffic that we want to say, ‘here we are.’”

Ziggy Mrkich asked if the bid would consider moving it back 35 feet.

“It seems worth it, because a lot of people have been commenting on social media,” Mrkich said. “Everyone seems to be disappointed it’s not an arch.”

In a post about the sign on a Facebook group for the San Pedro Arts and Cultural District, Todd Ho, a member of the group, said that he thought the signs could be from any town in the USA.

“They should have designed something unique to San Pedro,” Ho wrote.

Group member Susan Hadeishi wrote that San Pedro should show alternatives from a wide range of local artists.

“Awkward. Cold. Uninspired. Sorry PBID you can do better,” wrote group member Judith Blahnik.

Group member Laura Raab compared the designs to billboards.

“[T]he thing I don’t like about these sign options is that they are the size, proportion, and support structure of a billboard instead of a gracious, enticing entryway,” Raab wrote.

Group member Laureen Vivian said she loves the designs.

“YES PLEASE,” Vivian wrote. “I even like the black and white and the font used (maybe a tad big)…. Still an Art Deco crown would be the cherry on top 🍒 and it needs to say “Historic””

The PBID will keep the survey running through the end of February. At some point afterwards, it will have a public meeting to discuss the project. Then it will meet with various city departments, such as the Bureau of Engineering and the Department of Transportation. 

Johnson asked both San Pedro neighborhood councils to write a letter of support. Neither agreed to it at the February meetings. Neither had such an item on either of their agendas, but they might in the future.

The PBID did not respond to requests for comment on this story.