THOUSAND OAKS : Survey to Address Downtown Renewal

Thousand Oaks officials will survey business leaders and residents later this month as part of a plan to boost the city’s ailing downtown business district.

Hyett Palma, a Virginia-based private consultant, and officials from the National League of Cities will visit Thousand Oaks on May 27 to conduct three days of surveys and workshops with the public, Assistant City Manager MaryJane Lazz said.

About 200 residents, selected at random, will be asked to assess the quality of businesses in the five-mile-long area bordered by Lynn and Lakeview Canyon roads, the Ventura Freeway and Thousand Oaks Boulevard. More than 200 businesses will also be surveyed, officials said.

Residents will be asked to comment on parking and the image of the downtown, Lazz said.

Lazz said results of the survey should be completed by mid-June and will be used to shape architectural and economic goals for redeveloping the area.

The area surrounds the city’s planned $63.8-million civic arts center on the former Jungleland site.

The survey is part of a long-range plan to restore the city’s aging business district, which has lost trade to more modern, upscale malls built during the last three decades, city officials said.

It is also an attempt to give the community a center, a business official said.

“What lacks in Thousand Oaks is a downtown,” said Stephen J. Rubenstein, Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce executive director. “It needs shops, adequate parking and trees, and renovation of facades of buildings.”

Rubenstein said the chamber has wanted the city to formulate a plan to restore the downtown for at least 10 years. Downtown businesses began losing money when the Janss Mall was built in 1967, he said.