Positive changes in the works at historic Loyola Corners

By Bruce Barton, Town Crier Staff Writer

Above, Loyola Corners developers Jim Gollob and Gary Ross plan to open Lazy Bean Café at the old Loyola Market location.

Once a train stop - in the heyday of the Valley of Hearts Delight - the Loyola Corners district of Los Altos appears on the brink of some positive change after seeing a decline in its retail base over the past several years.

This historic district, still characterized by friendly neighbors and a cluster of small retail businesses and offices, has had two of its mainstays, the Echo restaurant and Loyola Market, close within the past year. Crosby’s Pet Center also closed its doors last year. The Echo, with its scenic view of Permanente Creek, closed in May after 62 years of operation.

Despite these events, a closer look shows Loyola Corners, well, turning a corner. Developer Gary Ross, a Loyola Corners resident, recently purchased the Loyola Market property from longtime Corners business owner Tom Andrews and plans to open a neighborhood-style deli and coffeehouse, the Lazy Bean Café.

“We want to bring it back alive,” Ross said of the area, founded by Jesuit priests (St. Ignatius Loyola) and considered for Santa Clara University, before the big quake of 1906 altered those plans.

Ross, with partners Jim Gollob, Mike Mayon and Alex Glew, envisions a deli-café that draws primarily neighborhood traffic. Ross said he wants the café to offer a relaxing atmosphere. Gollob is planning a menu that includes quality coffee, a variety of gourmet pizzas, deli sandwiches, soups, salads and pastries.

“We’re going to give it a face lift,” Ross said, as crews last week hammered away. “We’re putting in all new fixtures and getting it repainted. We’re working with the city to select the colors.”

Ross also plans live background music and a garden setting for the back of the building as a parking lot buffer. He hopes to have the café open by December.

“This is something we’re really putting our hearts into,” Ross said. “We’re doing this out of total desire.”

Beyond his new business, Ross is working on plans for an all-organic farmers market that would be open on the weekends, year-round. He also wants to revive the now-dormant business improvement district, which he described as “a necessity.”

“We all need to be working toward a common goal,” for the shopping district to be a success,” Ross said.

Future of The Echo

Meanwhile, M.P. Mouney, owner of the now-closed Echo restaurant property, has submitted tentative floor plans to the city in an effort to keep the property as a restaurant. He’s currently looking for someone with whom to partner on a new restaurant to open before the end of the year. The colorful and personable Mouney, a veteran of the restaurant industry, would like to see a brasserie open at The Echo.

The property is not without its challenges. Mouney needs to work with the city on reconfiguring the front parking lot, which blends into Miramonte Avenue and has no sidewalk or street curb. An old sign on the lot needs to be removed. Inside, the kitchen and bathrooms need major updating, the roof needs some repairs, and Mouney plans to replace a smoke-drenched old carpet in the bar, among other fixes.

City Planner David Kornfield said the restaurant is a noncomforming use and as such, Mouney had 120 days from the date of closure, May 14, to submit a plan for keeping The Echo as a restaurant. Mouney has done so, effectively “stopping the clock.”

“He’s stayed that 120 days,” Kornfield said last week. “We’ll review (the plans) and get back to him.”

Looking back

Loyola Corners transformed from a sleepy train stop to what some historians describe as a “bustling little shopping area” beginning in the late 1940s. Gene Sewell of Rancho Barber Shop, who began cutting hair at Loyola Corners in 1956, recalled more than 30 businesses at the Corners by the mid-1960s, just before Foothill Expressway was put in.

“Loyola Corners was never the same after that,” said Sewell recently. The Loyola bridge and underpass, in particular, had motorists driving by businesses, he said, that they might have seen otherwise.

Ted Cicoletti, a county traffic engineer who worked on the Foothill Expressway project in the mid-1960s, recalled “some people for, some against” the underpass. But Cicoletti said the underpass was built out of necessity because of the myriad streets meeting at one point.

“If you took an aerial view, you could see how many streets were converging on that point,” he said of Loyola Drive, A Street, Fremont and Miramonte avenues and Foothill intersecting. “When cars flowed across the railroad crossing and traffic was lighter, it worked.”

County engineers initially looked at a signalized intersection. “But who gets the green and who gets the red?” he said of the potential traffic signal problems.

New bridge ahead?

The underpass isn’t going away. But a new, expanded Loyola bridge to accommodate more motorists and pedestrians is at least in the county’s sights.

“There’s no developed plan at this time,” said county senior engineer Dan Collen. But a 2003 Valley Transportation Authority study identified three projects for Foothill Expressway, including a new Loyola bridge, and all were placed “at the highest level of priority,” Collen said.

There’s a catch, thoug money. There currently is no time schedule for funding the estimated $10 million project. Collen anticipated such a bridge being constructed “within five to six years of initiation.” He acknowledged a vocal community could help speed the process.

Another traffic improvement discussed has been to convert Fremont, running parallel to Foothill, from a one-way to a two-way street to generate more traffic for the row of businesses alongside.

City Manager Phil Rose said converting Fremont to two-way traffic is identified as a needed improvement in the city’s 1990 Loyola Corners Specific Plan.

“We can’t do it right now because of the bridge,” Rose said.

In the meantime, Rose saluted Ross for his efforts to convert the old Loyola Market building and bring more business to Loyola Corners. “He’s coming in with fresh ideas,” Rose said. “We have to be careful not to lose retail space. We need more retail there to make sure people come into that area.”

In search of an anchor

Rose and others have suggested Loyola Corners is in need of a niche business that can increase traffic for surrounding businesses. He cited as an example the presence of Trader Joe’s at the Foothill Crossing shopping center at Foothill and Homestead Road.

In a more modest way, the coffeehouse-deli concept presented by Ross seems to fit that bill. Cyclists from the nearby Bicycle Outfitter and those seeking a post-workout cup of coffee or lunch from Lady Circuit or the Los Altos Training Studio would find a convenient place to relax just steps away.

“It’s a good enhancement, and it adds balance,” said Debbie Klee, owner, manager and trainer at Los Altos Training Studio.

Klee, a native Los Altos resident who took over the studio last year, is enjoying a brisk business thus far. “It is such a wonderful community here,” she said. “A lot of people have forgotten or are not aware of the wonderful resources that are available at Loyola Corners along with the charming environment. It’s like a small town within a large town.”

Outfitter owner leaves

Another business that has continually done well is The Bicycle Outfitter, but even that business has undergone a change in ownership. Longtime owner Dick Powell recently sold the business to Bud and Neal Hoffacker of Palo Alto Bicycles. Powell is moving out of the area to head cycling tours in Hawaii and France.

Powell, who ran The Bicycle Outfitter approximately 28 years, enjoyed a strong business that became a destination for serious adult cyclists. Like Rose, he thinks Loyola Corners is in need of an anchor business that the area hasn’t seen since Safeway pulled out in the mid-1980s.

“When Safeway left, most of the merchants lost 20 percent of their business and never got it back,” Powell said.

Powell and others formed a business improvement district in the 1980s, which led to the area’s first farmers market in 1988, held in the parking lot of the Bank of America building. The farmers market gave Loyola Corners an identity, Powell said.

Merchants couldn’t sustain the energy needed for a business improvement district. Powell said the district was all but disbanded about five years ago, though it is still officially active.

The Bicycle Outfitter will continue to enjoy good business, Powell said, but he wonders about the future of the district.

“What kind of center has a bike store as an anchor?” Powell said.

Other draws

Still, other Corners businesses are doing well. Tom’s Depot remains a great draw for breakfast.

Los Altos resident John Gordon, having breakfast with his son Chris one morning last week, said he was attracted to Loyola Corners and the Depot in particular because, as a former Midwesterner, he liked its “Midwestern, ’50s look.”

“We’re close to home, and the food’s good,” Gordon said. “These people work hard. We want them to be successful.”

Arianna Mayes, co-owner of Lady Circuit, a few doors down, also reports business is good.

Ron Labetich, owner of a Loyola Corners property with a new tenant, Fast Track Kids, thinks the business will “benefit from the exposure there.”

“I think it can be a viable area,” he said. “It’s going to take progressive owners, progressive investors,” Labetich said.