SANTA PAULA : City Hopes to Lease Unocal Museum

The Unocal Oil Museum, Santa Paula’s most popular tourist attraction, would remain open as a city museum under terms of a tentative agreement that calls for the city to lease the facility for 20 years, officials said Friday.

The pact would eliminate the chance that the financially strapped oil giant might close the museum to save the $100,000 or more in annual costs to operate it. Since its opening in 1990, the refurbished museum has attracted 43,000 visitors.

“We’re done with all negotiations except finishing the fine print,” Arnold Dowdy, Santa Paula’s city administrator, said.

If approved by both sides, as expected, the agreement will allow the city to lease the building for about $1 a year, Unocal spokesman Barry Lane said.

“We’re very pleased the city views the museum as a real asset,” Lane said. “We did not look forward to shutting it down.”

The building, constructed in 1890 for $38,000, was the first headquarters of the Union Oil Co. until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1901. Unocal opened a small museum in the building in 1950, but spent $2.5 million in 1990 to restore the building and enlarge the museum during the company’s centennial anniversary.

Unocal occupied an upstairs office in the building until a month ago, when a telecommunications worker was transferred elsewhere, Lane said.

The company notified the city several months ago that it was considering closing the museum because of budget considerations. Unocal had acquired $4.7 billion in debt to defeat a hostile takeover bid, and has announced its intention to trim $200 million in expenses.

Dowdy said the city hopes to run the museum with assistance of the Santa Paula Community Foundation. No formal talks, however, have occurred with the foundation, he said.

Meanwhile, Unocal has trimmed the days the museum is open to two days a week. The museum, at 1003 E. Main St., will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is free.