2 Simi Officials Reject Design Plan for K mart : Development: The mayor says the company is having a hard time planning a ‘pedestrian-oriented’ shopping center near the Civic Center.

A plan by K mart Corp. to open a second Simi Valley store on vacant land near City Hall was dealt a setback this week when two council members decided the company’s current design is not compatible with the city’s plans for the area.

Mayor Greg Stratton and Councilwoman Judy Mikels met with K mart officials Monday to review the latest version of a plan to build a 117,000-square-foot store on roughly half of a 15-acre site south of Alamo Street and west of Tapo Canyon Road.

Stratton said that company officials are having difficulty meeting their own company’s strict development guidelines and the city’s desire to add a group of specialty stores, with an emphasis on pedestrian shopping.

“They’re having a hard time designing a pedestrian-oriented shopping center,” Stratton said. “It’s just very difficult to put that big of a box on that shape of a lot and have it not totally disjointed.”

Stratton said the council envisions the property as an ideal location for a string of specialty stores and eateries--similar to Sycamore Plaza on Cochran Street--that workers in the area can reach by foot.

“We see it as a day, lunchtime part of the Civic Center,” he said.

The city’s Civic Center area includes City Hall, the East County Courthouse and the state Department of Motor Vehicles office.

K mart in February applied for permission to build the new store. Simi Valley already has a K mart store on Los Angeles Avenue west of Madera Road. The company also has a store under construction in Moorpark that is expected to open this fall.

Deputy City Manager Jim Hansen attended Monday’s subcommittee meeting and said it was unclear how the giant retailer would respond to the comments from Stratton and Mikels.

“It’s really up to K mart and their consultants as to how they use the feedback they receive from the committee members and what they do with it,” Hansen said.

There was no formal decision made by the city officials, Hansen said, just a quick reading on the proposed project. “I would liken it to taking the pulse of two council members and getting good, honest feedback,” he said.

K mart officials could not be reached for comment Thursday. Stratton and Hansen said the matter is now in the company’s hands and it is up to them to decide how to proceed.

Both, though, say it will be difficult for K mart to fit a large retail store on that particular site and meet the council’s lofty goals for the Civic Center area.

“We want something perhaps a little different there and something that’s compatible with the Civic Center,” Stratton said. “There may be no way to make this work.”

Near the land favored by K mart is a 36-acre parcel purchased by the Simi Valley Unified School District in the 1960s and located across from City Hall on Tapo Canyon Road. The district and city have been working for the past few years to find a suitable use for the prime Civic Center plot.