By Nick Diamantides
Staff Writer
“The stars have aligned for Bixby Knolls,” said Blair Cohn, executive director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association. “A lot of good things are happening and more people are getting involved in activities here.” Cohn took the helm of the BKBIA about three months ago after former director Susan Cooper resigned to pursue other interests.
Most businesses in Long Beach are feeling the effects of the national economic downturn and no one can predict what the future holds, but everyone agrees that the more people that walk through an area, the more likely it is for businesses to prosper there. Cohn noted that one of the BKBIA’s most important roles is to help increase pedestrian activity in the area.
“We decided to start actively participating in First Fridays because that event really brings a lot of visitors to Bixby Knolls,” Cohn said. “Keith Lewis, Peter Dopulos and the folks at Nino’s Ristorante are doing a great job of running First Fridays. It’s not our intention to take it over. We just want to inject some more energy into what’s already happening.”
First Fridays moved to Bixby Knolls a little more than a year ago. It includes arts-and-crafts exhibitions and live music in several shops and restaurants on the Atlantic Avenue Corridor on the first Friday of each month. Its central base was Chroma Glass, where owner Krista Leaders did much of the coordinating with the help of Lewis and Dopulos.
Chroma Glass went out of business in January. “When that happened, I felt that if we were to lose the momentum for this important event, it would be to the detriment of the entire area,” Cohn said. “We wanted to provide assistance to the group that was already in place to make the event grow even more.”
To do so, in February the BKBIA itself became a venue for exhibiting art. In March, the association took a more active role in coordinating the event. “Now it’s centralized,” Cohn said. “The information comes here and then goes out to the businesses and the media.”
He explained that his job is to improve the business climate in the area and encourage business owners to work together for the common good. He added that people running a store or a restaurant can’t devote much of their time to organizing the efforts of their peers. “So I’m saying, this is what I do all day; let me be the one who goes door-to-door asking other venues to get involved,” he said. “And let me also make contacts to artists and musicians that I know.”
Cohn noted that since the BKBIA took a lead role in First Fridays, more venues have opened up for the event. “That’s going to benefit everyone,” he said. “” Plus, now the BKBIA can pay for First Friday ads in the Signal Tribune and network with other newspapers as well.”
Cohn also described another monthly event–the meeting of the Bixby Knolls Literary Society. “Our first meeting was held at Nino’s on March 10 and over 50 showed up,” he said. “ The group discusses one book at each meeting. Cohn arranged for local author D.J. Waldie to talk about his book “Holy Land, a Suburban Memoir” at the March 10 meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., April 16 at the Dana Branch Public Library, but no author will attend. “We will be discussing ‘Revolutionary Road’ by Richard Yates,” Cohn said.
For people who like to walk, BKBIA also offers “Bixby Knolls Strollers” every Saturday. “We meet at Starbucks and walk a different route every week,” Cohn said. “It’s about a three-and-a-half mile walk.” Last Saturday the group walked through the La Linda Neighborhood, where they saw the Bixby Mansion and toured several homes.
Cohn noted that the second annual Health and Wellness Expo, which was to take place on Long Beach Boulevard in May, has been postponed and will probably be included in the Snow in Bixby Knolls celebration next December.
Meanwhile, plans for the July 12 Dragster Expo and Car Show are moving forward. The event will take place on Atlantic Avenue from San Antonio Drive to Carson Street, and Cohn expects that it will be bigger and better than ever.
“The stars have aligned for us in another way,” he added. “This year we will be planting 49 trees along Atlantic Avenue, and it won’t cost the BKBIA a dime.” He explained that although a good number of trees were planted in that corridor last year, the association’s budget had no funds available for such a project in 2008.
“I called up Art Cox, who oversees tree planting for the city’s public works department and asked if he could offer us some kind of a deal,” Cohn said. “He told me that the Leadership Long Beach class of 2008 was looking for a place in the city to undertake a tree planting project.”
After Cohn, Cox and the BKBIA board of directors discussed the matter, the public works department agreed to supply 49 trees, make the concrete cuts and dig the tree wells for all of them. “All we have to do is find the people to plant them and supply the food to feed them,” Cohn said.
Other events include creating a more relaxed atmosphere for the association’s monthly mixers and renaming them “Community Happy Hours,” a “Summer Shutters Digital Photo Contest,” a “Scrapbook-a-thon” and monthly clean-up days.
“The idea behind all of the events is to tie everybody together and get more people to visit places they haven’t been to yet,” Cohn said, adding that serving as BKBIA’s executive director was like climbing a huge mountain. “I’m digging in and climbing it one piece at a time,” he said. “And I’m enjoying every minute of it.”
