Panel Picks Office Project for Parcel in Ventura : Development: Officials reject housing plan for downtown site, recommend negotiations with environmental consulting firm.

A committee of Ventura city officials Wednesday rejected a plan to build a housing project on city-owned property downtown, recommending instead that a Victorian-style office development be constructed on the site.

The city’s Economic Opportunity and Revitalization Committee decided that the City Council should begin negotiations with Holguin, Fahan & Associates, a Ventura environmental consulting company that wants to build a 10,000-square-foot office building and warehouse at the northwest corner of Figueroa Street and Thompson Boulevard.

City staff recommended the office project to the committee. “We felt that in terms of design and scale, the office project would fit better with the office buildings on the west side,” Associate City Planner Pat Richardson said.

The three-member committee is made up of City Council members Gregory L. Carson, Gary Tuttle and Rosa Lee Measures. The committee, which oversees many of the city’s business interests, reviewed the development proposals because they involve property the city owns.

The project must now be reviewed by the Planning Commission.

The committee rejected a proposal by Oxnard developer Ted Price, who wants to build 26 townhouses and shops on the site. Council members said they liked Price’s project and directed city staff to help him find another location downtown.

Carson, who chairs the committee, noted that for years, few developers had been interested in the 25,900-square-foot vacant lot. A water moratorium restricted building for a few years, and the recession has also discouraged some entrepreneurs, he said.

“Now we have two proposals to choose from,” Carson said after the meeting. “I’m thrilled that people are willing to invest dollars in downtown.”

Andrew Holguin, an owner of the environmental consulting company, estimated that the project would cost as much as $1 million.

If the committee had not recommended his project, Holguin said, “we would have been forced to move outside the city to find a desirable location.”

His company, which specializes in evaluating contaminated sites and hazardous wastes, has an office in east Ventura and one on Figueroa Street, down the block from the city-owned parcel. The two offices would be consolidated in this project, which calls for about 6,000 square feet of office space, 2,000 square feet for a laboratory and 1,000 square feet for a warehouse. A small parking lot with about 30 spaces would also be built to the rear of the building.

Holguin also plans to add some commercial space in the complex to lease to a small cafe. The design of the building is reminiscent of a Victorian hotel, with porches and planters.

City officials will now begin negotiating with Holguin on the price of the land and other concessions that Holguin is seeking, such as waiving traffic mitigation fees and low-interest loans.

Holguin said he thinks that the city’s appraised value of $310,000 is a little high. The city purchased the vacant lot for $312,000 in 1989, at the height of the real estate boom, Richardson said.

“Now its value has only gone down to $310,000,” he said. “I wish my house had kept its value like that.”

Richardson said city officials have no asking price for the land yet.

“We were kind of surprised when it came in at $310,000,” he said. “We just want to sell it at fair market value. We understand the price of land has gone down.”

If the Planning Commission approves the project, Holguin said construction could start within three months, and his company could move into its new quarters in mid-1995.