Advertisement

Mall, Pier Top Ventura Issues in ’96 : Government: City will consider expanding shopping center, repairing the landmark span and building a sports complex.

TIMES STAFF WRITER

City leaders are wasting no time hitting a list of top issues facing them in 1996, including an aging mall, a broken pier, deteriorating libraries and an old downtown needing constant care.

At the council’s first meeting on Jan. 8, city leaders are scheduled to consider a $50-million proposal to expand the Buenaventura Mall.

A few weeks later, they will review a coastal engineer’s report on why 420 feet of the historic Ventura Pier collapsed into the ocean--the first step toward deciding how to repair the 123-year-old landmark.

Advertisement

Topping the 1996 calender is a host of other key issues, including whether to build a baseball stadium and sports complex.

“I think it is going to be a huge year as far as issues are concerned,” Councilman Jim Friedman said.

The first issue will be the long-awaited mall expansion, billed as one of the most important projects in Ventura’s recent history because it could substantially increase the city’s sales tax base.

Advertisement

Mall sales now generate about $1 million in taxes, money used to pay for police, fire and other services.

MCA Buenaventura Associates, the mall’s owners, want to add two department stores and a second level of shops. Robinsons-May and Sears have agreed to leave The Esplanade in Oxnard for the spruced-up Ventura mall.

The expansion plan has been a hot issue in recent months--an issue that is not expected to cool in 1996.

Advertisement

“The mall is No. 1,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said. “It is coming like a freight train.”

But if the council approves the expansion--as expected--the project could be undermined by a March ballot initiative aimed at thwarting a tax-sharing plan between the city and the developer.

A group known as Citizens Against the Sales-Tax Giveaway opposes the tax-sharing plan on the grounds it gives away millions of taxpayer dollars.

But city leaders say the agreement is risk-free and a smart investment. As the March election nears, some plan to campaign against the measure.

“I know I am,” Friedman said. “I am ready to hit the rubber-chicken circuit.”

If the project is approved, construction would begin immediately. Road improvements such as the widening of the Ventura Freeway onramp at Telephone Road and a Dunning Street cul-de-sac would occur in 1996.

Mall owners would also begin to lure upscale retailers to the shopping center.

“There is a desire for a Crate and Barrel and, yes, there is a desire for an Eddie Bauer,” said Steve Chase, assistant to the city manager and project coordinator for the expansion. “There is a desire for different types of restaurants. . . . All of this gets shaped in ’96.”

But the first phase of construction could be held up by lawsuits, city officials said last week.

Advertisement

Oxnard city officials and lawyers representing The Esplanade have protested environmental studies on the grounds that the studies do not analyze the project’s impact on Oxnard. Ventura officials expect both Oxnard and The Esplanade to sue if the mall expansion is approved.

Meanwhile, if the ballot initiative is approved by the city’s voters, Chase said a flurry of lawsuits could be filed challenging the restrictions it would place on how the city conducts its finances.

Among other issues vying for attention in the coming year, the most immediate is the fate of the Ventura Pier. City leaders must decide how to repair the landmark, which went through a $3.5-million restoration just two years ago.

Insurance will cover the estimated $1.5 million in damage, minus a $100,000 deductible.

The policy specifically covers replacement costs. But if city leaders decide to rebuild the pier with materials other than wood, it would require digging deep into city coffers to come up with the difference.

“That is something staff and council will have to look at,” Friedman said.

Beyond its significance as a historical landmark and recreational area, the pier is also a key ingredient to the city’s plans for downtown redevelopment and increased tourism.

Construction of a two-story restaurant at the base of the pier is continuing. It is expected to open by May.

Advertisement

The pier restaurant was identified as a key goal for the city’s redevelopment efforts a few years ago. Other goals included bringing a multiscreen movie theater and parking structure to downtown--goals officials hope to accomplish in 1996.

“We’re getting there,” Friedman said. “Certainly, the addition of the movie theater and the parking structure will provide the catalyst to finish [downtown] off.”

This year marked the grand opening of a revitalized downtown, polished with palm trees, antique-appearing street lights and wider streets. But such improvements are only the beginning.

“We have to begin the housing process,” said Councilman Gary Tuttle, recently elected chairman of the city’s Redevelopment Agency. “I think we have to make it attractive financially to get people to invest.”

City leaders have already decided they want 900 residences built downtown, but have to find developers and sites for the proposed townhomes.

Meanwhile, city officials are still trying to lure upscale shops and businesses to the historic corridor along Main, California and Ash streets.

Advertisement

“Downtown will remain in the limelight,” Tingstrom said. “We are not going to back off on that at all.”

A proposal to build a baseball stadium and adjacent sports complex, dubbed Centerplex, is also expected to come back before the council in 1996.

Last summer, council members decided the $70-million project relied too heavily on city dollars and sent developer John Hofer literally back to the drawing board to come up with a better deal.

Since then, Hofer has agreed to pay for a market feasibility study that could cost as much as $50,000. The project is expected to come back before the council for consideration in the new year.

Improving Ventura’s libraries, which are operated by the county but receive about $100,000 in city money, was a hot topic during the November election.

A $35 parcel tax that would have bailed out cash-strapped Ventura branches failed at the polls. But council members have since pledged to find a solution to the library crisis, making it one of the primary topics at a retreat scheduled for Jan. 20.

Advertisement

“I think to begin with, we have to decide whether this city is going to take the libraries from the county and operate them ourselves,” Friedman said.

The retreat will serve other purposes as well. First, the council will decide how to structure committees for the next two years.

Council members will also lay out their goals for the coming year and set priorities. And the group will work with a trained moderator to learn how to operate as a cohesive team.

“There definitely is an effort to work together,” said Friedman, a newcomer to a once-rancorous council.

The reorganized group is determined to leave contentiousness behind, Friedman said, making a New Year’s resolution to get along.

“I truly believe,” he said, “that is how it is going to work out.”

Advertisement