The City of West Covina has not historically had a Downtown. With Zoning that has encouraged suburban development, the 300-acre area formerly labeled the “Central Business District” is divided into three distinct areas: the Civic Center, the mall, and Vincent/Glendora Avenue. The Civic Center is accessible mainly by car, surrounded by busy streets, a large parking lot, and a parking structure. The mall is similarly designed, and is centered within a vast parking lot system. Vincent/Glendora Avenue features shops and restaurants catered to automobiles with large surface parking lots and few pedestrian amenities.

Currently, the Downtown area is struggling – it lacks a sense of identity and place. There is no defined entry point into the City’s downtown, and each of the three districts is independent of each other. With wide streets and narrow, uninviting sidewalks, walkability is a pressing concern.

Within this uninviting suburban landscape, new development has begun to emerge to encourage a new identity for the downtown, including a mixed-use 450-unit housing community with space for retail, restaurant, and professional uses. And with the adoption of the Downtown Plan and Code, West Covina is working towards establishing a walkable, defined downtown with the capacity for change.

The existing Zoning Code contains suburban development regulations that allow for surface parking, with little direction on building design or massing, resulting in unpredictable outcomes for the community. The community vision-based Downtown Code offers clear standards that offer a predictable process and outcomes – an incentive for developers to invest with confidence. The Downtown Code emphasizes functional design, rather than land use, to achieve the vision for the Downtown.

Responding to extensive community input, the Downtown Plan lays out key concepts for development that will protect and enhance existing key physical features while identifying opportunities for improvement. The establishment of three integrated mixed-use districts is central to the Downtown Plan. Each district would consist of a ¼ mile pedestrian shed incorporating the physical components of walkable urbanism to discourage vehicle use. Connecting these three districts is a continuous open space network of streets. Sidewalks, crosswalks, greenways, and plazas create a rich, pedestrian-focused public realm with walkable streets and an integrated, multi-modal transit network with access to public transit. The plan provides standards for parking that encourage visitors to “park once” and walk or use transit to travel between the districts. The plan focuses on strategic infill development, identifying key underutilized parcels to encourage development opportunities. Finally, the plan encourages developers and planners to utilize the advantages of the 10 Freeway, including visibility of major retail centers and the opportunity to create strategic “entry points” to the defined Downtown districts.

The Downtown Plan provides suggestions for public improvements, such as creating a pedestrian/bike path in the existing Walnut Creek Wash, a transit plaza at the Plaza West Covina, and the creation of a green linear park space along Glendora Avenue (currently in process with Public Works) to create a central gathering place as the heart of the City.