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Furthermore, offices, banks, and restaurants moved out of town. As a result, downtown Santa
Ana became neglected and many of the old industrial and office buildings, which dated back
to the beginning of the 20th century, were completely empty in the 1980s. The following facts
have contributed to downtown redevelopment in Santa Ana:
• Strong economy in Southern California,
• Very strong mayor/leadership in town,
• Population growth in Orange County, and the fact that
• Orange County has been running out of land and thus greenfields have become less
important while at the same time infill and brownfield development have increase in
value.
To revitalize downtown and strengthen the city as a whole the city focused on art and culture.
The logic of downtown revitalization has been: If artists come; people, tourist, and a
bohemian culture would follow. In this concept, artists are thought as pioneers for urban
development and social life style. In this connection, the city rediscovered its old buildings. In
fact, Santa Ana is the only oldest city left in Orange County. In comparison, Anaheim pulled
its historic buildings down around 30 years ago. Focus for downtown redevelopment has been
Fourth Street which has always been Santa Ana’s “Main Street” and most important street for
the Hispanic community. Until the 1990s with its tremendous revitalization efforts, Fourth
Street was the only lively street in downtown. As the developer Arthur Strock stated in an
interview, the city had to reinvented itself or would die.1
The revitalization process of downtown Santa Ana began only 10 years ago at the beginning
of the 1990s. The most important features of downtown revitalization in the City of Santa Ana
have been public-private sectors cooperation and the Artist Village project in the downtown
redevelopment project area. The notion of the Artist Village as the anchor of Santa Ana’s
downtown redevelopment was born approximately 6 years ago. The Artist Village is centrally
located in the historic downtown and is now home for approximately 50 artist studios and
galleries, two live performance theaters, two restaurants, the Orange County Center for
Contemporary Art (OCCCA), a nonprofit artist run gallery, and the California State
University Fullerton (CSUF) Grand Central Art Center.
The Santa Ana Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) was established in 1973 and
downtown became the first Redevelopment Project Area in the same year. The goal was to
create a new, attractive commercial district with office, retail and residential uses. The biggest
public-private development project in Santa Ana is by far the Fiesta Marketplace. The DDA
was struck in August 1985 between the CRA and the Fiesta Marketplace Partners. Irving
Chase, a general partner of the Fiesta Marketplace Partners stated: “The Agency
[Redevelopment Agency] was instrumental and then truly provided a wonderful
public/private partnership” (City of Santa Ana, 1998:4). However, formal partnerships for
downtown revitalization on a lower level of public sector involvement is more common in
Santa Ana. That is presumably due to the size of the city with its 311,000 inhabitants.
To enhance the infusion of the arts, the CRA encouraged the reuse of vacant or underutilized
historic structures in downtown. The CRA has had “A Place for Art” as a motto for its
revitalization efforts. In this connection the CRA helped fund the renovation and expansion of
the Bowers museum, assisted in the acquisition of a site for the St. Joseph Ballet, bought the
Grand Central Art Center for the CSUF and then leased it back to the University, guaranteed a
loan for the Orange County High School for the arts, funded improvements of the Santora
Building to facilitate the establishment of a new restaurant, and funded the purchase of a
building on behalf of the OCCCA. These are examples of formal public-private or public-
1 Interview with the developer Arthur Strock on the 20th of October 2000