VENTURA : Part of Road Named After Auto Center

About half a block of Ventura Road leading to the Ventura Auto Center will be renamed Auto Center Drive and freeway signs with the new name will be posted on the Ventura Freeway, the Ventura City Council has decided.

Car dealers and owners of the Auto Center asked that the signs be posted and that the 100-foot stretch of road between the Johnson Drive off-ramp from the Ventura Freeway and Leland Street be renamed so their businesses would get more exposure.

As a result of the decision Monday, new street signs will be put up within a month, City Clerk Barbara Kam said. The California Department of Transportation will put up the freeway signs and that will probably take longer, she said.

Initially, the businesses asked that all of Leland Street, which runs in front of the car dealerships, be renamed Auto Center Drive. But executives at Valex Corp., also located on Leland, objected that the new address would be inappropriate for their company, which manufactures stainless steel for semiconductors and the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition to the new name, businessmen are seeking permission to put up a 16-foot electronic sign in the Auto Center that would flash ads visible from the freeway. The proposal will not come before the City Council until early next year, Kam said, but some officials have already said the sign would be an eyesore.