Put a retail disctrict in La Villa
Won't happen. You can't build new the kind of ambiance you find in historic buildings. That is all part of the draw, the uniqueness. If you were just going to build new from the ground up, you would just do it on an undeveloped parcel like SJTC. One transaction instead of 37, and you put the roads,etc wherever you decide rather than deal with what is already there.
In theory LaVilla could develop retail once the population justifies it, but what would draw in that population? It is a Catch-22.