Builder Ties Simi Mall to Measure E’s Defeat

An Indiana developer unveiled a “conceptual plan” Friday to build a major retail shopping mall in Simi Valley but warned that the eagerly awaited project will be scuttled if voters approve restrictive growth measures on the Nov. 4 ballot.

In an admitted effort to sway public sentiment on a controversial ballot measure, Michael Marr, an executive of the firm of Melvin Simon & Associates Inc., said the announcement was made before the election “to make the voters aware of what is on the line.”

“We typically prefer to announce a project after we’ve spoken to department-store representatives” and have obtained a commitment, said Marr, the company’s vice president for development. The company has discussed the project with a few prominent retailers but has no firm commitments, he said.

A spokeswoman for two citizen-backed slow-growth initiatives accused the mall developer of “holding a gun” to the voters’ heads.

“I would think that the average voter would be very offended by an outside development company coming in and interfering with our electoral process, “ said Jennifer Shaw, attorney for the group, Citizens for Managed Growth and Hillside Protection.

Marr’s Indianapolis-based firm is the second-largest shopping center developer in the country, with 59 malls and 37 community centers in 26 states. The proposed 500,000-square-foot to 750,000-square-foot center, anchored by three department stores, would end a long civic quest in Simi Valley to provide its residents--who at $45,000 have the highest average household income in Ventura County--with stores like May Co., Bullocks or the Broadway, said Mayor Elton Gallegly.

But Friday’s discussion of the proposed mall development took on political overtones when Marr offered his company’s caveat concerning the election.

Melvin Simon has a strong interest in developing Simi Valley’s first enclosed mall, but Marr said the company will abandon the $40-million to $50-million project if voters adopt Measure E on the November ballot.

The measure, backed by slow-growth advocates in Simi, would prevent the city from approving industrial, commercial or high-density housing projects in the hillside and rural areas of the city without public approval. The group also supports a growth-limit initiative, Measure D, which would limit the number of building permits allowed per year.

Simi’s elected officials oppose the measure as being too stifling. They have placed on the ballot two less-restrictive measures, A and B, that are also aimed at protecting the hillsides and limiting growth.

The site for the shopping center is on 80 acres at the northeast corner of First Street at the Simi Valley Freeway. Marr said about 35 acres are owned by the trust of Lucile Estes, a wealthy Simi Valley woman who until a few weeks ago was embroiled in a legal tussle over the control of her estimated $12-million fortune. The rest of the land is owned by the family of Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura).

Calling the location a “premier” one because of its size and nearness to the freeway, Marr said his company has acquired an option from the owners to purchase the land, but refused to disclose the price.

Under Measure E, the property falls into an area that prohibits new industrial and commercial development. It would require a separate public vote to exempt the project from the building ban.

The mall development would be allowed under the City Council-backed Measure B.

Gallegly, who attended a press conference Friday in which the tentative development plans were disclosed, said the nearest major shopping center for Simi Valley residents is at least 15 miles away, either at The Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks or the Northridge Fashion Center in the San Fernando Valley.

“Almost everyone that I’ve talked to wants to know when we are we going to get a quality shopping center,” Gallegly said, adding that the passage of the slow-growth group’s Measures D and E would mean “the demise of this project and everything that we stand for.”

Countered Shaw of the Citizens for Managed Growth and Hillside Protection: “They are asking for Simi Valley residents to trade off protections that Measure E provides relating to limitation on density and development in hills just so they have a cakewalk to get their project approved.”