If you are not exactly sure where downtown Los Alamitos is located, don’t worry, you’re probably not alone. The lack of an identifiable downtown, or town center, is at the heart of a bold new plan considered by the Los Alamitos City Council this week.

Imagine kids walking or biking to school without the fear of crossing Katella or Cerritos, open air cafes along a tree-lined boulevard, a city center with more people walking than cars, interesting and unique shops and boutiques,,, a home design/improvement center, with names you don’t necessarily recognize from their lack of national TV advertising, a place which is close by and easy to get to, and an all together good place to call downtown and show off to your out of town guests.

Where might this idyllic urban space be? How about Los Alamitos Blvd. between Katella and Cerritos? The street, along with the accompanying wide right of way on each side, makes this all possible because it’s wider than it needs to be.

Of course anyone traveling on Los Al Blvd. around the time school is starting or ending, might have some difficulty thinking the street is wider than is needed, but that is what the planners think.

“Most people deal with that area when they’re taking kids to school, or picking them up, or if you’re on the other side of town trying to get to the beach or the 405,” said Los Alamitos City Councilmember Troy Edgar. “People are concerned that there is too much traffic on that street to start with. It’s going to take a very concerted effort to demonstrate to the community that we can manage the traffic and we can also have a downtown.”

The total width of Los Alamitos Blvd., including the city owned right of ways, is 120 feet. That’s the width both between Katella and Cerritos, and South of Katella. But, traffic volume North of Katella is about one third of the volume south of Katella. So, officials believe some of that width north of Katella could be used to create a fresh, new pedestrian centric town center.

Not only that, by putting some gentle curves in the road, even more free space could be created on one side or the other of Los Alamitos Blvd. Planners also think it might be possible to add overhead pedestrian crossings for Katella near Wallingsford and over Cerritos into Los Alamitos High School at the currently vacant corner of Cerritos and Los Alamitos Blvd.

After viewing the report on the new idea, at their meeting on Monday, the Los Alamitos City Council asked staff to bring back in August a plan to merge the update to the city’s general plan with the new concept for a Los Al city center. This appeared to be one of those moments where the stars are all aligned – all five councilmember’s seemed to enthusiastically support the new vision.

The idea could, of course, end up as another fancy 3 inch binder on everybody’s bookshelf, or in the three year time frame envisioned by the plans, Downtown Los Alamitos could be a reality which we can only strain to imagine today.

“This has the potential to really transform not only the Los Alamitos Blvd. corridor, but to really create a heart of the entire city,” said Edgar. “This could be the new imprint which defines and gives a unique identity to Los Al for the next several decades.”

Of course, for that to happen, there are tons of details for people to argue over, and bureaucratic roadblocks to overcome. And, there is the small matter of money, but nevertheless, the mood among councilmember’s was filled with optimism Monday night.

We caught up with Councilmember Troy Edgar yesterday to get his take on the whole business and to try and find out if this is real or just a pipedream. “I think this is the next chapter for this Council,” he told www.OC180NEWS.com. “The city is now financially stable, we’ve put in place a solid management team with {City Manager} Jeff Stewart, and we’ve gotten through the trash contract controversy.”

The money to pay for all the improvements could potentially come from a variety of grants, city funds, and special districts. The city is not in bad enough shape to qualify for redevelopment grants, but there is some money in the city’s capital improvement project budget which could be used.

“We’ve planned for this, we’ve got money in reserves that we said we could spend if we were going to develop an economic future for Los Al, Edgar said. “We have money in our capital improvement budget for the section of town they are talking about. We’ve never used it because we didn’t really have a plan.”