Some say don’t sweat the small stuff. Though sometimes you have to celebrate the small stuff.

After decades of false starts and baby steps forward, there are big movements at Marlton Square, a.k.a. Santa Barbara Plaza. Just over a year ago, Leimert Park Beat embarked on a…

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Finally - a really big step toward reclaiming the derelict 20 acres known as Marlton Square!

 

When LeimertParkBeat.com and Intersections South LA Report teamed up to produce the definitive story last year, there had been…

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This is the press release from Bernard Parks' office:

 

PARKS TO KICK-OFF DEMOLITION AT MARLTON SQUARE

City’s Most Long-Awaited Development Project Moves Forward

WHAT: Councilmember Bernard C. Parks will join Congresswoman Maxine Waters and city

officials to kick-off the demolition of city-owned buildings in the Marlton Square shopping

center (formerly Santa Barbara Plaza) at a press conference on Thursday morning.

Redevelopment of the run-down…

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The vacant and derelict buildings along Martin Luther King Boulevard in Santa Barbara Plaza, also known as Marlton Square, will be torn down and removed beginning the second week of July, according to Councilman Bernard Parks.

 

The city owns all but two of the parcels, Oran Belgrave's art house/radio station and Jerry's Flying Fox. The city made its last big purchase in the…

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Councilman Bernard Parks tweeted and held a press conference claiming that "Demolition to Begin Shortly" but offered few specifics and no time line. Parks held a press at the Buckingham Place senior apartments saying that "Marlton Square has emerged from bankruptcy, with a final settlement reached on December 29th.

In his Twitlonger post, Parks states that Commercial…

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Cities across the USA are turning unsightly lots into semi-permanent parks while they wait, sometimes years, for development to occur, a story by Nathaniel Popper in the LATimes.com reports.

 

"The lemon: An empty Manhattan lot surrounded by beat-up chain-link fencing. The lemonade: An urban oasis with wildflowers, wooden benches and sculptures in the middle of…

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By Emily Henry of Intersections South LA and Eddie North-Hager of LeimertParkBeat.com



Santa Barbara Plaza has been whitewashed, boarded up, security gates padlocked. Most of the 240 small and large shops once here have been relocated, were bought out or have gone out of business.



Yet this Los Angeles shopping center -- the size of 20…

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Councilman Bernard Parks remembers a time when people on the hills of View Park, Angeles Vista and Baldwin Hills all came down for the plethora of local businesses in Santa Barbara Plaza, known by some as Marlton Square.



Emily Henry of Intersections South LA Report interviewed Parks for the project we are doing on the fate of this dilapidated and largely abandoned shopping center that takes up 20 football fields.…

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The $30 million upgrade of the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza is underway just a year or two after new owners came in and paid more than $100 million for this prized piece of real estate.







But across the street, it's taken decades to redevelop Marlton Square, which sits in shambles a stone's throw from the world famous Debbie Allen Studios and the nicest Fatburger and Taco Bell you'll ever see. And of course the Magic Johnson Theater and Sears.… Continue

Hopefully it's more than a talk ing point.

As we have

begun to interview key players, we keep hearing "we are closer than ever to

redevelopming Marlton Square." Hopefully something is going on behind

the scenes.

If this is considered close, it means in the 20 years that this project

has been underway that the city was never close to making this a

success.



Capri Capital, which bought the adjacent…

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Heard on KPCC this morning, the Magic Johnson Theater in Crenshaw Plaza was closing Monday! I talked to a couple of people who should have known and they didn't. So in case you don't know

The mall owners plan on a $30 million upgrade for Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza that will be funded in part by the city. So they are…

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There are 20 acres in our community that everybody knows as a dump, as a shame. But once Marlton Square, aka, Santa Barbara Plaza held 300 stores, stores supported by our community. Banks, dry cleaners, tailors.



Let's try to imagine.



Seem like a lifetime ago because for most of us in the Crenshaw area the only memory is of Marlton Square in shambles.



It was once a destination. Now it is in decay. Development could be just around the corner. Let's hope it is.…

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Life Magazine has opened its archives and I found a treasure trove of photos - from the expanse of the Crenshaw Mall to Fats Domino on Central Avenue.

You can see saxophonist Herbert Hardesty playing his instrument on floor as rhythm section of Fats Domino's band accompanies him in "Don't You Know," at 54 Ballroom on Broadway in 1955.…

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