Removal of the parklets in Montrose will begin in just over a week.

By Mary O’KEEFE

The landscape of Honolulu Avenue in the Montrose Shopping Park will change – again – with the removal of K-rails that were installed during the pandemic to increase dining options.

According to Bradley Calvert, assistant director of Community Development, City of Glendale, removal of the existing installations will begin on Oct. 11 and continue through Oct. 18. The city plans to start with the installations that are no longer desired by the businesses, which will give more time to those restaurants that are utilizing them the most.

A task force, which includes members of the board of directors of the Montrose Shopping Park Association, a restaurant owner and city representatives, has been created that will discuss design ideas for continuing outdoor dining. Calvert said he is anticipating sharing the designs for the new outdoor dining options with the MSPA and the task force within a week.

“We plan to go to [City] Council on [Oct. 19] to ask for approval on the design, and to enter into the installation contract for the new parklets,” Calvert said.

Gigi Garcia, MSPA vice president and task force member, said they are awaiting the designs and hoping to have more information next week.

It has been a long and windy road to the removal and revamped design of the parklets. The saga began in early summer 2020. COVID-19 had forced restaurants and other businesses to close their doors. Then restaurants could reopen, but only for pickup orders. This was devastating for the restaurants and employees. Finally, in late June 2020, the Al Fresco Glendale program was established by the City of Glendale to create small outside dining areas for restaurants. The dining areas were in the parking spaces in front of restaurants and bordered by cement K-rails.

“The City of Glendale, from the time it started talking to us to the time [the K-rails were] installed, was quick and easy,” Corey Grijalva, owner of Joselito’s, said at the time. “It wanted our input when everything came in; [the City] was just super helpful. The plants had to be in a certain way to create barriers for the alcohol beverage control and the City helped me out on that. It was really good with it.”

Many restaurant owners decorated their K-rails by painting them and adding plants. Owners purchased or rented tents, heaters and fans – anything that would enhance the outdoor dining experience.

Like many other cities that created outdoor dining areas, most of the public loved the additional seating and the al fresco program became very popular.

As indoor seating opened up the push to end the K-rail program came from some business owners who reportedly wanted parking spaces back for their customers.

City of Glendale officials began exploring whether to remove the parklets altogether or to install more permanent structures that included additional amenities, such as weather protection and better aesthetics, than the concrete and plastic K-rails.

In May 2021, City officials surveyed residents and business owners to ask about their al fresco experiences and their thoughts of making the parklets a long-term feature. The survey received 1,145 respondents with 51% of those coming from La Crescenta and Montrose and 14% of the responses from business owners – 32 were restaurant owners. With more than 75% of business respondents being retail merchants, officials were surprised to find that more than 74% of business respondents, including more than half of the all retail merchants, supported making the parklets a long-term fixture. They were joined by 82% of residents, an overwhelming majority, who wanted to see the program continue.

The City had originally planned for parklets in downtown Glendale and Montrose to be removed in mid-October; however, at its June meeting the Montrose Shopping Park Association board members requested the Montrose parklets to be taken out by Labor Day. The board discussed notifying the restaurants that the end of outdoor dining was coming earlier than originally anticipated.

This news was not welcomed by restaurant owners and patrons who also approached the City with their concerns. MSPA board members and restaurant owners worked with the City to create other options.

Thus the creation of the task force and the designs for outdoor dining.

According to Calvert, the amount of time will be minimal from the shut down of outdoor dining due to the removal of the K-rails to the new design put into place, estimating that the revamp will take just a few weeks. This is good news for restaurant owners who are worried that their employees will once again be laid off or have hours reduced as their wait for outdoor dining to resume.