'New Stuff': Nyssa Holty and mom Susan Holty of San Luis Obispo check out the new landscaping on the Front Street Pedestrian Plaza.

By Teresa Mariani

They're sneaking back, in ones and twos and threes, looking around and slowly warming up, like the sand after the sun comes out of the fog.

It's October, and The Locals are returning to Avila Beach. They have one thing on their minds: Will it be OK?

The answer from many, after wandering the beach and the Avila Pier, seems to be a tentative yes. And when you're talking about a county that dug in its heels and almost unanimously insisted that it didn't want the "funk" taken out of everyone's favorite funky beach town during one of the biggest environmental cleanups on record, that's a big thing.

"I think we needed to come here and make our peace with all the newness," explained mom Susan Holty of San Luis Obispo, walking the new Avila Beach Pedestrian Plaza by the pier with her grammar-school daughter Nyssa.

The Holtys have been coming to Avila Beach ever since they moved to San Luis Obispo seven years ago. "It's our favorite beach," mom Susan Holty said, as Nyssa nodded in agreement.

So when the beach and most of the downtown was dug up a little over a year ago for the massive Unocal oil cleanup known as Project Avila, with some of the town carted off into storage and some never to return, "We were a little concerned," Holty said.

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Them - and about 200,000 other people.

"We liked how natural it was before," she explained, echoing the thoughts of most Locals. "Nyssa cried when they took away the Avila Grocery."

But slowly, under the sun on a gorgeous Indian Summer noon hour in October, the Holtys were warming up to Avila. Nyssa was a little more critical at first, but after walking the beach and the Pedestrian Plaza and the Pier, she appeared to be softening. The Avila Grocery was back in its spot, much to Nyssa's delight, and some of the "new" Avila was looking OK.

A Bunch of New Stuff

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"There's a bunch of new stuff. My favorite is the rocks," Nyssa said, pointing to the sandstone boulders placed at the base of the pier to create a faux tidepool, complete with equally faux mollusks, starfish and sea snails realistic enough to make adults do a double-take and little kids try to pick them up and take them home. (You can't - they're cemented in there tight. And yes, they are fake.)

Even if the Avila Grocery isn't open yet, it's a soothing presence - a familiar landmark, sitting right where it used to be, looking mostly the same. So is the Avila Pizza Pantry and the Laundromat and apartment complex next door - also currently empty. Still, "It's good to have it back," Susan Holty said, nodding toward the grocery. "I think it's going to be OK after all."

That was the tentative verdict from Dan Gibbs, a retiree from Paso Robles out strolling by the pier the same sunny morning. Gibbs has been driving down from Paso Robles about once a month over the past year, just to check out the progress on Project Avila.

This summer, as Unocal crews put up the restrooms, repaved the streets, brought back the Avila Grocery, and built the Pedestrian Plaza, Gibbs came back almost weekly to watch. Like a lot of Locals, Gibbs loves Avila - even though it's a good 40-minute drive from his home.

"I've been coming here for years and years and years, since I was a kid. And that's a lot of years," he joked. "This is the best beach. It's always going to be my favorite, no matter what. The weather is better here. It's always warm here. You go around the corner to Pismo and it's cold," he said, waving across San Luis Bay to Pismo Beach, shining across the clear blue waves.

So while Avila was torn down, dug up, and put back together again, Gibbs kept an eye on things. Under the October sky, he was giving the new Avila a cautious thumbs up too. "You can tell it's not finished yet - but I like all of the décor, and all of the little stuff," he said, gesturing to the starfish on the concrete planter benches, and children scampering around them.

Locals' Favorite Improvement? Stalls & Soap

The only bigger winner in the "Locals Favorite Avila Improvement" contest seems to be the public restrooms. They're still right where they used to be - at the base of the Avila Pier, behind the Avila Beach Yacht Club. (The Yacht Club's back too.)

They look a lot different from the outside. Instead of pale blue stucco, the restrooms are now bright yellow clapboard with white trim - a sort of beach farmhouse look that has some locals grumbling. Until they go inside.

Five - count 'em! - five stalls, stainless steel sinks and - at long last - soap grace the public restrooms. (At least the Ladies Room. Gibbs was kind enough to confirm the Mens Rooms were equally glamorous.) There are also two unisex handicapped access bathrooms, and a larger lifeguard's headquarters in the building.

The showers are still there - right where they were. Only now they're on a curving concrete pad that's part of a "stepped down" beach access area.

At both sides of the pier, the curving paths and steps with benches wind down to the sand, making a fun trail for smaller kids and an easier transition to the sand for seniors and others. Regular flights of steps still march down to the beach at periodic intervals along the seawall. The seawall itself is a softer sandstone color, with a railing perfect for people watching.

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True, the swing sets on what every Local calls the "family side" of the beach are gone. They'll be moved to a new park and children's play area at the very southern end of Avila Beach, scheduled to be completed in November. A bright red pirate's ship already sits in a sea of sand there.

Pedestrian Plaza Pleases Parents

Another big change is the Pedestrian Plaza itself. The block of Front Street at the base of the pier has been closed off, and turned into a giant sidewalk, complete with planters, benches, Nyssa's favorite tidepool, and a row of palm trees. There are even bike racks designed to look like wooden hitching posts.

Avila purists may be shaking their heads in horror at the vision of the Front Street Pedestrian Plaza - but it was quickly winning over the Local Mom crowd.

"I think I like this, because it'll be great for the kids," Susan Holty said. "You know, before when we were crossing the street, you had to be really careful for all the traffic. You did worry about the kids a lot on the street when it was really crowded."

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With a glance at the new Front Street Pedestrian Plaza, it's easy to see it full of teen-agers and college kids and vacationers in the summer, all strolling back and forth to get ice cream cones and French fries between boogie boarding and suntanning.

But there's the catch: right now, there's no place to stroll to. The Avila Grocery building is back; but it's currently closed and empty. The rest of Avila's downtown is still a shining square of squeaky clean sand.

Will the businesses be back? That's what the Locals want to know - along with the rest of Avila's fans.

"I'm waiting to see what's here," Susan Holty said, gesturing at the gleaming sand and orange construction fence that front the Front Street Pedestrian Plaza right now. "Will the shops be back? What's coming back? I don't want it to be too 'polished.' When they re-did Pismo, we went, 'Uhhh,' " she said, gritting her teeth. "I hope all the little shops come back, and they look like they did before: like a bunch of beach shacks. And that funky swimsuit store - I loved it. Will it be back? We'll just have to wait and see."

"The Custom House was one of my favorites," Gibbs said. "Is that coming back?"

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The Answer is Yes

The answer is yes, on both counts: Custom House, The Sea Barn and Mr. Rick's will all definitely be back. No one knows for sure yet just what else will rise on the sparkling square of sand that is now downtown Avila Beach. Unocal owns much of the land, and is looking to sell it; the company maintains it does not want to be a landlord or property manager.

But a handful of Avila favorites already have architectural drawings and permit requests in to the San Luis Obispo County Planning Department, and are waiting for the county's OK to rebuild.

They include the Sea Barn, The Old Custom House, and Mr. Rick's. Plans for all three call for ground floor retail (or restaurant) space, with apartments or condominiums on the second floor. The Custom House and Mr. Rick's are definitely back; they plan to have buildings up and open in Spring, 2001 - a big relief to Custom House fans, who tend to be die-hards.

The Sea Barn may be the first to "break sand" on their new building. "We know we're going to be open sometime next year," said Linda Price, who owns the familiar bathing suit store along with husband Bill. "We'd love to be open by next spring. It's all designed and ready to go; it's sitting on the county's desk and they're doing their thing with it," she said.

The couple opened a Sea Barn in the new Wal-Mart shopping center off Highway 101 in Arroyo Grande when they had to move out of their Avila location. Business has been so good, they will keep the Arroyo Grande store open in addition to their new Avila Beach store.

"The local people love us being here in Arroyo Grande," Price said. "Avlia has always been more of a tourist town. We get a lot of people from Bakersfield, Fresno and Visalia. A lot of times they'll come in and buy a suit and just wear it out onto the beach and start playing," she said.

The Price's new Sea Barn in Avila will be 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, almost double the size of their old shop. It will also be in a new location: right across from the Avila Pier, smack in the middle of the new Pedestrian Plaza. It will have a basement below and a condominium above. "We're not sure if we'll live there yet or not; we may," Linda Price said.

The couple have tried to hold on to the Sea Barn's funky roots in their new building design. "It's wood, so it will still kind of have a 'barn' motif. Our architect knows a source for recycled wood, so we're trying to use recycled wood, so it doesn't look like a brand new shiny building," Price stressed. "Everyone wanted that kind of funkiness to stay in Avila, so we're really trying to hang on to that."

"No one," Linda Price said, "wanted to see a big stucco wall."

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