CAMARILLO : Proposed Shopping Plaza Discussed

A proposed $85-million shopping plaza that has raised concerns among Camarillo business owners was discussed Wednesday night in a joint meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission.

If approved, Rancho Camarillo Plaza would be built on an 87-acre site near the Ventura Freeway near Pleasant Valley Road and developed jointly by the Sammis Co. and Copley Real Estate Advisors. The plaza would include shops, movie theaters, restaurants, a skating rink or miniature golf course, day-care center and inn.

It would also offer a 280,000-square-foot manufacturers’ outlet center selling clothing, housewares, leather goods and electronics at lower prices than other regional malls, said Russell Goodman, president of the Los Angeles and Ventura region of the Sammis Co.

The project is expected to create 2,000 jobs and generate $2.3 million in annual revenues for Camarillo, Goodman said, adding that the city loses millions of dollars in sales each year to malls in Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Ventura.

However, several Camarillo merchants believe that the plaza may hurt their businesses.

“We’re worried about the existing stores,” said Lillian Bellonoff Williams, owner of the B+B Center and Pickwick Center in Camarillo. “Why don’t we encourage people to rent out the vacant office spaces in the city? There are plenty of huge, empty buildings in Camarillo.”

Some residents who attended the meeting feared that the plaza may increase noise, smog and traffic.

But city traffic engineer Tom Fox said traffic could be eased by widening Pleasant Valley Road from two lanes to as many as eight lanes between Pancho Road and the Ventura Freeway. The cost of construction would be shared by the city and the Sammis Co.

Noise from the plaza would be blocked from residential housing by a cinder-block wall along the west side of Pleasant Valley Road, said planner James Keefe, an employee of the Newport Beach-based Planning Center, a planning firm under contract to the city.

A public hearing on the proposal is set for Aug. 20.