The Long Green Miles

The Dedlow’s factory was dim in the dying California evening, the smell of sawdust and paint emanating from the rows of picture frames hanging up to dry.

Even in the dark and silence after closing, the building felt lived in. Remnants from the day’s work lay in the shadows, a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall above two dried roses, a stack of small golden frames. Only one employee remained behind, Augustine, his quick hands folding cardboard into protective packaging as he listened in Spanish to immigration reforms.

For nearly 30 years, David and Edwina Dedlow have run their frame-making business Framatic out of an industrial building along the L.A. River, before the land became a precious parcel for development.

In the wake of the Army Corp of Engineers' promise to raise $1 billion dollars to transform the L.A. River back into a natural center for the city, apprehensions in Frogtown are running high.

“It’s mostly around gentrification. That’s the big issue here now,” said David Dedlow.

The Dedlows own one of 30 properties abutting the L.A. River, all of which have gone from industrial to desirable as a rumored 15 changed hands in the last two years.

Now the Dedlows are fielding offers of $3 million to $4 million dollars from speculative realtors, who see their Elysian Valley land as the gateway to a lucrative future in waterfront business development.

“Everybody has approached me,” said David Dedlow. “I have a very desirable parcel, and I own another property. And literally every single developer has approached me. And I know them all and I pick their brains clean as much as I can.”

The city plans seem fairly straightforward; re-naturalize a river that 60 years ago was banked with towering concrete bluffs. But the possibility of a real river with plants, birds, and life flowing through the urban heart of Los Angeles has attracted the interest of those with deep pockets. Some have compared the future vision of the L.A. River to the San Antonio Riverwalk, a network of walkways, shops, and river boats that capitalized on the Texan flood danger, and transformed it into a tourist destination.

“There’s a lot of wishful thinking, there’s a lot of misinformation, and there’s a lot of hype…not the least of which is there’s literally a real estate boom, a bubble. And it’s largely based on the ‘billion dollars’ committed by the government to revitalizing the L.A. River,” said David Dedlow.

Dedlow is a community activist, as well as an owner, whose past features a tour in the Peace Corp in the Central African Republic. He is a self-described “town cryer,” someone who passes information from one side to another in the interest of transparency.

“I want to know who’s buying what, how much they’re paying, what they plan to do with it,” said Dedlow.

“I didn’t realize how complex it was. There’s a lot of moving parts. And the competition is so fierce and the amount of money involved is so enormous, that being small player is almost impossible,” he said.

Dedlow refers to the forces of development that have swept through Frogtown in the past three years, in response to the forward momentum of the L.A. River’s planned beautification. Driving through Elysian Valley, there’s a sense of security in the immutability of a neighborhood too small to warrant attention or its own library.

But the Dedlows are the face of a new interactive exhibit designed by Helen Leung of L.A. Más, an Elysian Valley nonprofit engaged in community outreach. The exhibit, part of the “Futuro de Frogtown” program, features a cartoon of the Dedlows with the caption, “Should our makers make…or sell?” It then offers the choice of several options that include dividing the factory into small manufacturing spaces, live/work units, or affordable housing with room for commercial business on the ground floor.

“What I think makes this neighborhood great is its hodgepodge of uses. That you do have industrial commercial manufacturing next to residential, but then you also have this mix of social economic cultural backgrounds,” said Helen Leung.

Leung, who’s worked under Mayor Garcetti and received her master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy school, grew up in Elysian Valley to Chinese immigrant parents. As a little girl, Leung would walk to Framatic, where Dedlow gave her old cardboard boxes to play with.

“We created a potluck party last summer and it was great to know that there are Cambodians, Thais, Filipinos, Spanish. There’s a range of people in this neighborhood and they’ve all had long roots in the neighborhood,” said Leung.

“The folks who have bought their property for a very high price, maybe that will change. They may have different alternatives, different motives. But what they’re drawn to is the excitement of the river and I think there’s a way to align both.” Leung admitted she doesn’t yet know what that compromise would look like.

Sitting in his Framatic office surrounded by frames, one hand attempting to restrain his poodle puppy Ripley, David Dedlow looks younger than his 64 years. “I’m certainly not planning on selling, I have not made a decision to sell. My first impulse is not to sell, for very practical financial reasons,” he said.

“So it would not surprise me that I’m very typical of most businesses in this neighborhood that their real estate, if they own it, is worth more than their business,” he said.

And that has made selling off land attractive, particularly for an older generation of owners. “I’m almost 65 and I need an exit strategy,” said Dedlow. “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow. But I’m not going to be doing this 10 years from now.”

George Clingerman, a man with a deep voice and ready smile, is of a similar age to Dedlow and owns the neighboring property to Framatic. He built his own concrete manufacturing business, Transcrete America, in Elysian Valley 23 years ago. He and his wife of 43 years, Edna, live on the business property in a mobile home they moved into over a year ago after their mortgage became too much for them.

George Clingerman said that while he doesn’t intend to fully retire for 10 or 12 more years, the business climate in California will soon drive him elsewhere.

“I think within the next two to three years probably we’ll relocate the business to Arizona, and semi-retire at that point,” said Clingerman.

The Clingermans said they’ve had their property evaluated at $3 million to $4 million dollars within the last year, and that most of the buyers approaching them are either developers or artists looking for a creative space.

“Well the development of the river has brought in a big influx of dollars because now what I have has become riverfront property,” said Clingerman. “So that value of the property has increased tremendously. It’s our opportunity to gain a nest egg which I won’t get through the business.”

Clingerman said he welcomes the L.A. River project, because he believes lower-income neighborhoods specifically, and L.A. in general, would enjoy newfound access to nature, including the kayaking and fishing in the river.

"All this natural stuff these kinds of neighborhoods never see...I think it would be great that kids would have an opportunity to do all those things in their natural habitat," said Clingerman.

In the past, Transcrete America had 26 employees, but when the recession hit, it dropped to seven. When asked whether the L.A. River project would help Transcrete employees after Clingerman sells the company, he said, “That’ll bring jobs to the project itself. I’m not sure it would necessarily bring jobs to my business. Because unless our [concrete] equipment is working in the river…then it will help bring jobs.”

One door down from the Clingermans is M Stevens Dancewear run by Gayle Davis, a willowy former dancer. Davis trained under Marilyn Stevens, a classically trained ballet dancer who started her own company selling tights and leotards on Sunset Boulevard.

“We’re like a small family. I really grew up here since I was 27. So I don’t know what I do here without M Stevens being my family,” said Davis.

Davis moved her factory, where she has a small cadre of female employees cutting, sewing, and dyeing her dance costumes, within the last year. Formerly she was situated only three minutes away, in a plot of land now belonging to the new Marsh Park.

After decades of planning by neighborhood committees, the area where M Stevens Dancwear sat next to the river was converted into a small park as part of the overall move toward green space. Marsh Park is now adjacent to where new three-story apartment complexes are being built.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority who work on the L.A. River project came knocking on Davis’ door repeatedly to tell her that she’d one day need to move.

“And I said, oh my gosh. Because I looked around the city and it's hard. It's hard finding a space,” said Davis, who now rents the building she operates out of.

As she gave a tour of her factory, complete with bright spools of thread and bundles of white tops waiting to be dyed, Davis said the move was taxing. “A move is on the scale of a death,” she said, before adding, “I’m grateful I’m here.”

Davis said she worries about having to move again. Since she doesn’t own the building or property it sits on, she doesn’t know if offers have been made to buy. When she first had to move, Davis considered her choices.

“And the other option was, we just won’t be in business anymore, we’ll just retire. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know what I was going to do. And there’s people working here.”

It’s part of a larger problem when it comes to housing in Los Angeles. Davis points out that she hired brokers and spent a great deal of time looking for space. A few years ago, Elysian Valley was one of the last places she called affordable.

Davis said she’s noticed a trend of small businesses being replaced with big lofts.

“It’s like playing chess and who’s vulnerable and who’s not. And there might be somebody who comes in and is younger, and says, ‘Well Gayle got the wrong move here, I think I’ll just come in here and buy her out,’” said Davis.

“I’m not selling. I’m not,” she said emphatically.

One of the younger, newer companies tied to the L.A. River development is Dry River Brewing, a craft beer operation owned by Dave Hodgins and his wife Vanda Ciceryova.

Hodgins, who holds an MBA and a Master of Real Estate from the University of Southern California, began working on his dream company two years ago. A home-brewer with his wife, the pair have already produced a creamy Horchata Ale and a dry, tart Leggy Blonde.

While proudly showing off the construction of his new building, Hodgins described himself as an environmentalist obsessed with fairness. His primary income comes from Susento Group, his renewable energy consulting company.

After visiting his chosen brewery location in Boyle Heights, Hodgins said he felt a profound connection with the river.

“One of our main goals is to bring people to the river. And that’s really something that breweries are a perfect vehicle for doing, it’s a perfect place to come and hang out and congregate, have fun, relax. So that is one of the major goals, is to get people to see what I saw and feel that connection,” said Hodgins.

The L.A. River Revitalization Corp, the nonprofit in charge of the L.A. River revitalization, called Dry River Brewing emblematic of the type of companies they wanted to see around the river.

“Yeah I think we are a new wave of redevelopment, or re-investment along the river. A lot of the property’s blighted, it’s kind of industrial waste land, back towards the river, looking away from the river. So we want to be part of the transformation of turning to face the river and bringing in bike paths, and we hope that other businesses will anchor off of us,” said Hodgins.

Hodgins' first choice was a space in Elysian Valley, before deciding that prices were too high.

“It was great news, of course, when the Army Corp of Engineers recommended Option 20, the major investment in revitalization of the river. But that also got a lot of property owners thinking, I’m sitting on a gold mine now,” said Hodgins. “So I think it was a sort of a double-edged sword that announcement coming out.”

One percent of Dry River Brewing’s profits will go to nonprofits that work on the river or with the community in Boyle Heights.

“It’s been front and center in our business model from the beginning, giving back,” said Hodgins. He said no one’s accused him of gentrification yet, but that he anticipates they will.

“I understand where redevelopment has been done badly and it hasn’t been balanced and people have been displaced. So, what we want to be a part of is a revitalization effort where the community is involved in helping to articulate what is the future that they do want, instead of saying 'no, no, no.'”

Hodgins said that while Dry River Brewing will open in early 2015, the business will stick to manufacturing and won’t open its doors to the public until they have community support.

Back in his framing factory, David Dedlow listened to his wife Edwina taking calls in the back room. The owner of Framatic said his community needs to take a realistic approach to the incoming development.

“Part of the reason that market forces hold sway is that is so complicated and people can’t get on the same page, and in the absence of any other structure, market forces at least answer the question… It may not be the best way but it takes the least amount of energy on everybody’s part. It just goes to the highest bidder.”

“Like global warming, species have to adapt to survive or go extinct. And that’s what’s happening to this neighborhood I think,” said Dedlow.

“What would I want?” Dedlow reflected on the future of Frogtown. “I would want the polar bear always has an ice floe to stand on. And what is the alternative? I’m not sure and neither is the neighborhood.”