CORONADO — In its heyday in the 1930s and '40s, Coronado's central business district resembled small-town America as captured during those years by painter Edward Hopper. In 1990, it is a place in need of some touch-up work.

By some accounts, the opening of the Coronado Bridge in 1969 sped the downtown's downturn. Suddenly, residents and tourists on the peninsula had access to myriad shopping choices in large malls only minutes away.

Today, Orange Avenue between 8th and 12 avenues, Coronado's main commercial center, is a mix of thriving and waning businesses. Spruced-up storefronts rest next to run-down shops or once-quaint period facades that were long ago covered by reckless remodeling jobs.

Yet there are several signs of new life.

Some downtown merchants are hoping a program called Coronado Main Street, funded by the city two years ago and modeled after a national main street revitalization program started by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will speed improvements downtown.

The organization encourages local businesses to upgrade their marketing and storefronts. Main Street Director Marcus Thomson helps building owners determine appropriate uses for their properties.

Several shops are sporting fresh faces designed in keeping with the commercial strip's eclectic architectural character, a mix of '30s Art Deco, Spanish Colonial and neo-classical.

Sports Emporium stands as a shining example of how to create a new business that fits in.

The store resides in an adapted period Spanish building, once the peninsula's only hospital.

A seedy neighborhood bar last year became Primavera, an upscale restaurant with a snappy facade and stylish interior designed by Sheryll Jackman, an active participant in the Main Street organization.

But for every such success, there are also disappointments.

Downtown Coronado hit bottom in the mid-'80s, when an oversize, poorly detailed Bank of America branch replaced a smaller Spanish building that housed a neighborhood dress shop.

A few years earlier, developers had leveled a low-key Spanish-flavored complex not far away to build the bulky, poorly designed Coronado Plaza, now home to Marie Callender's, several fast-food establishments and upper-level offices.

When the bank moved from the the long, graceful neo-classical Schulman and Neumann building on Orange Avenue to its new monstrosity across the street, Coronado residents, planners and politicians realized the time had come for action.