-Staff Writer-
With this year coming to a close, the Bixby Knolls business district is gearing up for 2015 with an abundance of plans in the works, including new dining options, façade improvements and revamped community events.
“We think we hit a little plateau, and now it’s time to get up to the next level,” said Blair Cohn, executive director for the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association (BKBIA), which has 800 members and receives funding through an annual assessment on retail, service and professional businesses to promote and enhance the corridor.
As a variety of new businesses have opened in Bixby Knolls recently, the time has come to update the BKBIA’s business directory and shopping and dining guide that hasn’t been revised in five years, Cohn said, adding that 12,000 copies of the new business directory will be delivered next year to homes surrounding the district.
“We want to make sure the neighborhood is in tune with what we’re doing and knows what services they have right in their backyard,” he said.
Cohn said extra copies of the new business directory will be provided to businesses and will also be available at the BKBIA’s office, which, by the end of December, will be located inside the newly remodeled Expo Arts Center, relocating from the BKBIA’s current location of 20 years at 4313 Atlantic Ave.
He said moving the BKBIA’s offices to inside the Expo Arts Center will allow the association to directly manage and program the center.
“We’ll be on-site managers of the space, and we’ll be able to program it,” Cohn said. The BKBIA is also planning to put a new twist on some of Bixby Knolls’ regular community events that aim to attract patrons to the district, he said.
“We’re going to do a revamp and look at events that we have been doing and kind of upgrade [them] and give them a little fine tuning,” Cohn said. “You always want to improve on what you’re doing. We want to take it up a notch or two.”
Uptown Beach Streets
The biggest new event coming to Bixby Knolls next year is the Long Beach version of CicLAvia in which six miles of streets will be blocked off to cars to let bicyclists and pedestrians roam freely. Cohn said the City has confirmed that the event, which is being called “Uptown Beach Streets,” will take place on June 6.
“It will be like First Fridays on steroids,” he said, adding that the event will include food stations from restaurants in addition to entertainment centers. “We want to jump on it and start making some plans. There’s a lot to do from now until then, and we want to make sure that when people go through Bixby Knolls they’re having a great experience.”
The City received a $260,000 federal grant through the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation District’s (LA Metro) Open Streets Grant Program to cover expenses of the event, including costs for shutting down the street in the north Long Beach area, Cohn said.
The association also plans to continue façade-improvement projects along the business corridor next year while maintaining the BKBIA’s “clean team” and security patrols, he said.
One of the façade improvements includes adding sidewalk dining to Willmore Wine Bar at 3848 Atlantic Ave. Cohn said the BKBIA plans to assist the establishment with installing a patio after the City Council last week approved a permit for the addition.
Craft brews and sweets
Cohn noted that, in addition to new restaurants and eateries popping up in Bixby Knolls, including New York-style Bixby’s Brooklyn Deli that opened this year at 4280 Atlantic Ave., a burgeoning “craft brew” scene continues to develop.
The Factory Gastropub, which was the first to start serving up specialty beers in Bixby Knolls since it opened more than five years ago while hosting beer festivals, may soon be joined by Dutch’s BrewHouse, a community draft brewery that recently submitted plans to the City of Long Beach to bring a B.O.P. “Brew On Premises” concept that was made popular in Canada. Weiland Brewery is relocating to a spot at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Claiborne Drive from its original location in downtown Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo.
Stateside Crafts, a craft-beer bottle shop and specialty market, showcasing more than 200 world-class domestic craft beers, ciders, select local wines, “real sodas,” artisanal cheeses and snacks is located at 4242 Atlantic Ave. In addition, Stearns Liquor Bixby, at the corner of Carson Street and Atlantic Avenue is getting a makeover and changing its interior while catering more to the craft-beer market.
“These are all great things that change the face of the street,” Cohn said. “We want to make it active and engaging to get more people out. All these improvements are just helping the district to grow.”
Bixby’s Knolls’ sweet tooth is expanding as well. Wrigley resident Dina Amadril, who has gained a loyal Facebook following after hosting specialty, hand-crafted ice-cream tastings at different locations around town, including at Farm Lot 59, plans to open a brick-and-mortar location to be called Long Beach Creamery at 4141 Long Beach Blvd.
Amadril, who started creating different kinds of ice cream out of her backyard, said she expects the shop, which will include a dairy room and a hot kitchen for making elements to be mixed into the ice cream, will open by the end of February or beginning of March.
She said her business will be a mix between an ice-cream shop and an ice-cream production area, where customers will be able to see all aspects of the ice-cream making. “Ice cream can take on many kinds of flavors,” Amadril said, adding that her business venture has been solely “community driven” with suggestions taken from people on social media.
“They helped me choose and make all kinds of decisions,” Amadril said. “And I chose Bixby Knolls.”
