Camarillo Panel Approves Factory Outlet Mall : Development: Builder hopes to break ground on the 22-acre site in late spring and have facility open by November.

The Camarillo Planning Commission has given final approval to a 22-acre factory outlet mall that is expected to generate an estimated $400,000 in sales tax revenues annually for the city.

Following nearly two hours of staff and consultant reports on the proposal, the commission voted unanimously to approve the 250,000-square-foot mall. City Council approval is not required.

Les Meridith, Planning Commission chairman, called the project a boon for Camarillo.

“I think this mall will be good for the community in ways that are not just economic,” Meridith said. The environmental work “has been quite well done and documented.”

Tuesday’s Planning Commission vote was the second on the project planned for the long-vacant Koll-Leonard property, which is south of the Ventura Freeway between Los Posas Road and Carmen Drive.

Over the summer, after the Planning Commission and City Council approved the mall proposal, the effort was stalled by a lawsuit filed by an Oxnard developer and a retired Camarillo businessman. In response to the lawsuit, a Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled that the city’s development deal for the mall, which would have rebated about $500,000 to Koll-Leonard, amounted to a gift of public funds.

The judge also ruled that the city’s cursory environmental approval of the site was inadequate and that a full environmental impact report was needed.

But even without the rebate, Koll Co. officials in Los Angeles said Wednesday that they will build the mall and have it open to the public by November.

“We are prepared to go ahead with this project,” company spokesman Peter Tilton said. “Even without the incentives of the old deal, we still feel that Camarillo is a very viable site.”

Tilton said that after receiving building permits, the company is prepared to break ground on the site by late spring. He said construction on the first phase of the mall should by complete by November.

He declined to name the tenants that will occupy the new facility.

“We are in the negotiation stage with several companies, and I can’t really tell you yet who they are,” Tilton said. “But, like all successful factory outlets, you’ll see some recognizable names there.”

Larry Davis, Camarillo’s assistant city manager, said the mall is expected to generate about $400,000 in sales tax revenues annually for the city.

“We’re very excited about this getting approval,” Davis said. “There are a lot of things we can do with that revenue to make things better for the entire community.”

An environmental review done for the mall concluded that the project would increase noise, traffic, and construction and traffic-related air pollution. The report recommended solutions to those problems, including the installation of sound walls, road-widening projects, employee trip-reduction plans, and tie-ins to bus and shuttle lines.

As Koll officials line up prospective tenants for the mall, construction crews a few miles up the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard have already broken ground on another factory outlet mall south of the Ventura Freeway between Rice and Rose avenues.

Steve Kinney, president of the Greater Oxnard Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit organization funded by the city of Oxnard, said he believes that there is room enough for two factory outlet malls in Ventura County.

“What I think will happen is that both malls will initially develop only their first phases,” Kinney said. “It will be like one mall--only with two halves that are separated by a few miles. I’m confident that both will do well, though.”