On the Road Toward Change : Commerce: Officials say Thousand Oaks Boulevard should be transformed into a more pedestrian-friendly commercial strip.

It was one of the first streets in Thousand Oaks, a dusty two-lane road lined with eucalyptus trees that began at the easternmost border of Ventura County and ended in the heart of cattle country.

Thousand Oaks Boulevard was Main Street, where old-time commerce and automobile culture blended, said Harold Warner, 68, owner of Harold’s House of Omelettes.

“Years ago, it was exactly like Route 66. It was like passing through those little towns, with the cafe and the hardware stores,” he reminisced. “But the boulevard’s changed so much. Business hasn’t been like it used to be years ago.”

In the 1960s, horse riders could still hitch their ponies to a post. In the 1970s and 1980s, psychics and palm readers on the boulevard offered predictions as bright as the tie-dyed T-shirts they sold.

Today the boulevard, stripped of most of the eucalyptus trees, is at a crossroads. Its crazy-quilt of mom-and-pop shops has lost ground to the more upscale Oaks and Janss malls.

The Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday will consider awarding a contract for a study on how to market the boulevard.

Officials believe something should be done to transform Thousand Oaks Boulevard into a more pedestrian-friendly commercial strip and to beautify the area, City Manager Grant R. Brimhall said.

“There’s no question there’s some ugly duckling segments,” he said. In the 1950s, the street was known as Ventura Boulevard. Back then, it snaked through the Conejo Valley, crossing sections of what is now the Ventura Freeway.

When the boulevard was widened from two to four lanes in 1967 and 1968, it stripped many of the businesses of their street parking, a factor that some owners say discouraged shoppers from stopping.

By 1979, when Brimhall first visited town, a gas-station attendant characterized the boulevard as “the rotten core of town,” he said. Parts of the boulevard were buckling, and all along the street “there was a feel of decay.”

Soon after Brimhall’s arrival, Thousand Oaks began sprucing up the boulevard. The city has already spent about $10 million on storm drains, underground utilities, signs, sidewalks and street parking.

He said the city is planning to spend at least $8 million to $10 million more in the next five years. Brimhall acknowledged that some parts of the boulevard are still in sore need of attention.

For one, the architecture along the strip ranges from Western to Mediterranean and modern. Brimhall envisions a renovation program that would create clusters of businesses with similar architectural style.

“It will be kind of like being with a child,” he said, “a child that’s growing up from a gawky, brace-laden teen to a real beauty.”

Among the oldest businesses are those in the 2800 block of Thousand Oaks Boulevard, home of Oakdale Market, which still has its original wooden floors and plain wooden facades.

Constructed in 1927, the building used to house the city’s only dance hall and post office, said owner Charlie Weiss, 47. The likes of Elvis Presley and Jane Fonda are said to have shopped there when they passed through town.

Nowadays, younger families shop at larger supermarkets. New Latino, Middle Eastern and Asian families have moved into apartment houses on the boulevard, and so have small ethnic food stores that cater to them, he said.

Most of Weiss’ customers are old-timers, loyal residents who still prefer his meat counter.

“When I was a kid we used to carry chewing tobacco. We always had a lot of Beechnut, Red Man. We don’t carry any of that anymore,” Weiss said on a break from his butchering chores. “We never used to have tortillas. Now we do.”

Several doors down, Thousand Oaks Meat Locker owner Bruce Oxford remembers opening the market 34 years ago to cater to residents who wanted special cuts of meat. Pictures of former President Ronald Reagan, one of Oxford’s loyal customers, are on the wall of the market, now run by his son, Wendell (Cobby) Oxford.

“A lot of people don’t come down here on the boulevard anymore,” said Oxford, 38. To attract customers, the market opened a catering business and barbecues outdoors.

Oxford is leery of the change that is coming. He foresees a day when the boulevard will be lined with chichi cafes and trendy stores lit with neon signs.

“The bigger the city gets, the more modern people want to see it,” Oxford said. “It could become more yuppie.”

Perhaps nowhere on the boulevard is change coming more quickly than at Jungleland, the former wild animal park where the city of Thousand Oaks is building a $63.8-million civic arts center.

Steel girders are rising on the building, which will eventually house a modern performing arts complex and a city hall.

Rick Bucaria watches the construction from his tiny silk-screening shop in a two-story house built in the 1930s. Bucaria said his location is the cheapest spot he could rent on his small budget.

Bucaria is happy that the new city hall will probably increase the traffic that flows past his store each day, but he is not pleased with the city’s design.

“Everything’s Spanish on this street, and they’re building some space-age city hall,” Bucaria said as he silk-screened T-shirts for the Ross Perot campaign. “It’s not going to fit into the Spanish around here.”

Some business owners complain that the boulevard already lacks a uniformity found in newer commercial zones in the city. Many of the older businesses cropped up long before the city instituted strict zoning regulations.

And because of the low rents, the boulevard attracts new businesses that would have difficulty opening in more upscale plazas around town.

Just a few feet from Bucaria’s doorstep, a pair of bicyclists shouted, “Hippie shirts!” at Anthony Colasacco as they sped past.

“They always ask, ‘What is this kind of store doing here?’ ” said Colasacco, who works at Into the Sun, a 1960’s-type shop that sells tie-dyed T-shirts and bikinis.

On most days, only about five to 10 shoppers drop by. “It’s kind of slow, I guess,” he said.

Farther down the street, Bookaneer bookstore owner Tracy Benedict calls the collection of stores along the boulevard a “mish-mosh.”

“It’s sort of messy. It doesn’t look planned to me,” she said.

It has been a challenge attracting customers to the boulevard since she opened in August, she said. She plays the harp to attract customers passing by her shop on their way to the bait and tackle and carpet stores next door.

“I notice there’s a lot of empty buildings. Some of these shopping centers are dead,” Benedict said. “I hope they fix up the area. I intend to be here for a long time.”