Armenian Town project moves ahead in downtown Fresno.

Fresno Bee
Dec. 3, 2004

The historic area of downtown Fresno that, decades ago, sheltered
newly arrived Armenian immigrants is now moving toward a bustling
future of gleaming office towers, shops, restaurants and cultural
amenities. That’s both welcome and vital for downtown Fresno’s
continued revitalization.

The long-planned Old Armenian Town project took a leap forward Tuesday
when the city and the developers – Richard Gunner and George Andros –
reached an agreement on the sale of 7.8 acres of city-owned property,
bounded by O and M streets, Ventura Avenue and Freeway 41.

The development, to be built in several phases over the next decade,
will ultimately include a new state appellate court building, three
large office towers and an Armenian cultural center, plus two parking
structures.

A cultural center is planned for the corner of M Street and Ventura
Avenue, across from the historic Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic
Church and next to the Valley Lahvosh Bakery, an icon of Armenia Town
from its inception. The opportunity is there to make the center blend
seamlessly with those beautiful old structures and tie them to the new
ones.

Standing alone, the Old Armenian Town project would be a great advance
for downtown. But in fact it’s only one of several ambitious efforts
now under way. The area south of Grizzlies Stadium is being studied by
Forest City Enterprises, a major national developer of the sort of
mixed-use development that characterizes the most vibrant of
downtowns. In Chinatown, Ed Kashian and Tom Richards are planning
similar efforts.

All of this comes on the heels of major projects such as the stadium,
the Community Regional Medical Center and several government and
private sector buildings that have sprung up in recent years.

The best news is the prospect, now being seriously examined, of
building new residential areas downtown, to bring back the sort of
energy that can only come when people are living, shopping and
relaxing there, instead of simply working all day and then heading to
other parts of town at night.

None of this comes easy, nor should we expect it to all happen
overnight. It took many years for downtown to slip toward decay, and
it will take years to recover.

There are contentious issues along the way, as we have seen with the
Old Armenian Town project. A decrepit old church was torn down – the
facade has been saved – to make way for the project, over the
objections of preservationists and many in the Armenian community.

But the work advances, even at a price, and that’s good news for all
of us.