Santa Paula Is Rising, Shining

Tom and Rosanna Jennett plunked down $1.4 million this year for a rundown motel in Santa Paula, the center of an agricultural valley in Ventura County that has also seen better days.

For the Los Angeles couple, the purchase represents more than a chance to restore a historic building to its former glory. It is a bet on the future of a mostly blue-collar town that is struggling to restore its economic vitality.

Just as Santa Paula’s quaint, century-old downtown has served as Hollywood’s stand-in for Main Street USA in countless movies, the forces that drive the city have not changed in decades. Its principal industry is still rooted in the lush citrus groves that nearly encircle the town of 29,000.

While other cities rode the crest of the region’s retail boom, Santa Paula stagnated into an isolated outpost of few jobs, boarded storefronts and little new construction. Last December, Santa Paula Memorial Hospital was forced to shut its doors after 42 years.

“At one time, there were busy shops and businesses all along Main Street. You should have seen it,” said Dr. Samuel Edwards, a fourth-generation Santa Paula resident and former county medical director. “But the world has passed us by. We’re definitely going to break out, but it’s going to take some time -- and capital.”

Officials insist the city is entering a new era. Indeed, Santa Paula is the county’s latest beneficiary of a hot real estate market that has already begun to attract investors, developers and affluent home buyers. All are lured by the unspoiled beauty and relative affordability -- the median price of a home is $256,000 -- of the self-proclaimed “Citrus Capital of the World.”

Several other signs indicate that change is at hand.

Dallas-based Centex Homes is moving forward with plans to build a 2,100-home subdivision in undeveloped Fagan Canyon on the city’s northern edge.

Arizona-based Pinnacle Group wants to build up to 400 multi-million dollar estates in remote Adams Canyon.

A group of local investors is negotiating to buy property in the newly designated downtown redevelopment area.

“We’re reaching out to businesses and saying, ‘Look at what we have -- mountains and orchards and a 100-year-old-plus downtown that’s attractive for retail,’ ” said City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz, hired two years ago to help turn things around. “Once we build something, and we’re successful at it, people will come.”

Another vote of confidence comes from Limoneira Co., a homegrown international agribusiness that is looking to develop 400 acres of land along California 126 to help invigorate the city’s under-utilized highway frontage, said President Harold Edwards. The company has purchased a shuttered gas station on the site, where it plans to open a new store and restaurant.

Enter the Jennetts. They bought the Glen Tavern Inn downtown after searching all over Southern California. The hub of Santa Paula high society in the early 20th century, the 1910 English Tudor inn had fallen on hard times over the years, most recently serving as a flophouse for drug dealers.

Tom Jennett, who grew up in Los Angeles, had never heard of Santa Paula before exploring the area last year with his wife. Driving down California 126, which runs the length of the Santa Clara Valley, Jennett was surprised by what he found.

“This was a slice of old California,” Jennett said. “I saw the old town area and I was struck by the quaintness of it. I thought to myself, ‘How come nobody comes to Santa Paula? ... It’s close to everything, but it has a small-town atmosphere.”

Whatever course the city takes, residents in the largely Latino community do not want their town to become the next big-box battleground. In public surveys, Santa Paula residents repeatedly say they recognize the city’s need to grow but not at the expense of its architectural and cultural heritage.

Striking a balance between preserving the city’s charm and reinvigorating the local economy is key to revitalization, said resident Mike Miller, project manager for an affordable-housing developer in Ventura County.

Miller, who pushed for a community-wide effort last year to plan Santa Paula’s first major housing development in decades, envisions the day when residents and visitors walk the two blocks from the train station to Main Street to shop, catch a movie, dine and enjoy the ambience.

“This is undervalued, underutilized property,” Miller said as he walked down Main Street, past discount stores, thrift shops and coffee shops. “We need some commercial investment in this city. It’s ripe economically, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

With a new attitude at City Hall, officials say they are doing all they can to encourage change by sprucing up neighborhoods and boosting residents’ morale. This includes everything from daily power-washings of sidewalks along Main Street to strict enforcement of building code violations.

Negotiations also are underway to sell the Civic Center site just off California 126 to a Malibu developer, who would convert the property to more lucrative retail and commercial enterprises. The hope is to build a City Hall and police station downtown.

Meanwhile, even the city’s crime rate fell 33% last year, the lowest level in three decades. Although an audit in January found the 31-officer department inefficient and underfunded, the City Council is considering placing a public safety tax on the November ballot to bolster services.

But new housing remains paramount to the city’s future. With a 71% Latino population and a median household income of $41,651 -- the lowest in the county -- Santa Paula must strive to grow without leaving its low-income residents behind, said Mayor Gabino Aguirre, a 30-year resident. The city has the highest percentage of overcrowded homes in the county, 29.4%, according to 2000 census data.

“We should provide housing for all levels in Santa Paula,” Aguirre said. “The thing is, we’re limited in how much housing we can have.”

Because Ventura County has some of the strictest growth laws in the nation, Santa Paula must make the most of a limited supply of developable land, Aguirre said. When Centex proposed building a housing development in Fagan Canyon, residents demanded a say.

They got their wish in a community forum, helping to design a sort of anti-suburb. What emerged was a pedestrian-friendly community that includes parks, trails, greenbelts, schools and housing diverse in design and suited for a wide-range of income levels.

If approved by the City Council, construction could begin in 2007, said Centex spokesman Rick Bianchi.

Real estate agents say they are already seeing a subtle shift in the market as the buzz about Santa Paula intensifies. Bill Duston, an agent with Coldwell Banker, said he has received calls from investors as far away as San Francisco.

With real estate prices at all-time highs in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, people in the market for income property are looking to Santa Paula as one of the few places left in coastal California where it still makes financial sense to invest, Duston said.

Carl and Esther Bobb represent a new breed of people drawn to Santa Paula for its weather, home prices and strong sense of community. They moved with their two daughters to an older tract house on the west side three years ago to escape Ventura’s coastal fog.

Carl Bobb, a superintendent for a Ventura construction company, said he would like to see the city build more parks and install stoplights at certain busy intersections. Otherwise, he doesn’t have many complaints about his adopted hometown.

“It will take a little bit of growth to change some of the negative things,” he said. “But we love it.”