Crime Stabilized, Vacancies Persist

What Property Owners Got for $3.6 Million in PBID Fees

By Devonte Barr, Reporter

For seven years, property owners inside San Pedro’s Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District (BID) have been writing mandatory checks. Not voluntary contributions. Not optional dues. Mandatory assessments, backed by the force of law, have totaled more than $3.6 million since 2017.

The pitch was straightforward: cleaner streets, safer blocks, a stronger commercial corridor. The kind of improvements that justify forcing every property owner in the district to pay, whether they want to or not.

The question is whether they got what they paid for — preventing decline, or whether they’ve been funding something else entirely, something less visible.

According to the district’s Annual Planning Reports, assessment revenue increased from $1,078,761 in 2017 to $1,340,548 in 2024 — a roughly 24% increase over seven years. Total estimated revenue, including carryover and other income, rose from $1.29 million in 2017 to $1.67 million in 2024.

That’s real money coming out of real businesses. A small retail shop might pay $1,500 annually. A larger property owner could be on the hook for $15,000 or more. Every year. With no opt-out.

Not every property owner views the arrangement favorably. One business owner along Pacific Avenue, who requested anonymity, described the assessments more bluntly: “It’s BS.”

Security and ambassador services consistently represent the district’s largest expense category. In 2017, those services accounted for 45.5% of the budget. By 2019, that share declined to 37.1%. In 2024, visitor, ambassador and security services account for 36.7% of projected expenditures.

Spending on sanitation, beautification and capital improvements increased during the same period, rising from 17% of the budget in 2017 to 28.8% in 2024.

The district’s projected surplus also grew. In 2017, surplus revenues totaled $200,000. In 2019, that figure declined slightly to $165,578. In 2024, projected surplus revenues total $315,160.

With security representing the single largest expenditure over this period — the thing property owners pay the most for — the first place to look for return on investment is in public safety outcomes.

Over the past seven years, between 36 and 45% of the BID’s annual budget has been allocated to security and ambassador services. Roughly $1.3 million over seven years has gone toward safety-related services. To assess whether property owners got their money’s worth, crime data from the Los Angeles Police Department were analyzed within the district’s geographic footprint.

Using LAPD open data filtered to the BID boundary between Pacific Avenue and Harbor Boulevard and roughly 3rd to 10th Street, total reported crimes declined from 1,749 incidents in 2017 to 1,463 in 2019 — a 16% reduction prior to the pandemic. By 2023, total incidents rose to 1,614, reflecting a post-pandemic increase but remaining below 2017 levels.

Property crimes fell modestly before the pandemic, then rebounded; burglaries remain roughly 21% lower than 2017 levels. Vehicle-related theft declined consistently from 92 incidents in 2017 to 67 in 2023. Violent crime showed similar patterns: an early decline, followed by a rebound during the pandemic, and a return to baseline levels.

The data show stabilization, not transformation. Crime fell before the pandemic, rose afterward, and now sits near where it started. Vehicle theft — the kind that empties parking lots and scares customers away — has declined steadily. That’s something. But it’s not a dramatic turnaround. It’s not the kind of result that justifies $1.3 million in mandatory spending.

Which raises the next question: if crime didn’t collapse, did the corridor at least fill up?

If mandatory assessments are supposed to create a thriving retail corridor, the proof should be visible in commercial occupancy. To assess whether BID expenditures correspond to a fully leased district, a review of current real estate listings and storefront conditions was conducted along Pacific Avenue between 3rd and 10th Street, the district’s core footprint.

If you’re in search of commercial real estate, listings show several properties currently available for lease or sale along South Pacific Avenue. Listings include retail storefronts near 9th and 10th streets and larger commercial spaces being marketed for repositioning. While the number of actively advertised spaces is limited, there is availability in the corridor.

A visual survey of the Pacific Avenue corridor shows that vacancy is present but not pervasive, with dark storefronts appearing intermittently rather than in concentrated clusters. The corridor shows no dramatic increase in visible vacancy compared to archival imagery from earlier years.

The commercial environment is neither thriving nor collapsing. It’s not a fully leased corridor, but it’s not characterized by widespread blight or abandonment either. As with crime trends, vacancy patterns appear driven more by broader retail market fluctuations — particularly post-pandemic adjustments — than by anything the BID did or didn’t do.

The pattern across all three measures — financial investment, public safety and commercial occupancy — points toward the same conclusion.

Since 2017, property owners inside the district have paid more than $3.6 million in mandatory assessments. Security remains the largest line item. Crime fell before the pandemic, rose modestly afterward, and now sits near baseline levels. Vehicle-related theft has declined steadily. Vacancies exist, but they are not concentrated.

The district has not presided over a dramatic decline. It has not produced a dramatic transformation either. What it appears to have done is maintain.

And that leads to the real question.

In a district governed not by elected officials but by property owners and a board, maintenance may be the intended outcome. But if assessments rise annually and the corridor remains fundamentally unchanged, the question is not whether the BID failed — it’s whether stability was the goal all along, and whether that goal justifies forcing every property owner to pay for it.

Because maintenance is not free. It costs $3.6 million and counting. And in a working waterfront corridor shaped by pandemic shocks, retail contraction, and shifting consumer habits, the question is not whether the district stayed the same. The question is whether staying the same is worth a mandatory tax — and who gets to decide.

The data suggest the BID has done what many districts attempt, but few can easily measure: prevent deterioration. Whether that outcome justifies mandatory assessments is not a statistical question. It’s a governance question — one that ultimately belongs to the property owners funding it.

The BID’s executive director was contacted for comment, but did not respond by press time.