2 Large Projects in the Works in Oxnard

Undoubtedly, it will be years before ground is broken at either location, but two huge projects are on the drawing boards at opposite ends of Oxnard.

In the south, the Baldwin Co. remains resolved to build a master-planned community at Ormond Beach, even though the project has been scaled back several times in recent years.

In the north, Martin V. (Bud) Smith, dean of Ventura County developers, has begun moving a $250-million mixed-use complex through the approval process.

As evidence of its resolve to move ahead in Ormond Beach, Orange County-based Baldwin has named a new president of its Ventura Division. He’s Louis J. Malone, a former president of the Donald L. Bren Co. in Newport Beach. He succeeds Bob Burns, who resigned.

When it was first proposed in the 1980s, the Ormond Beach community was envisioned as having 10,000 homes, a marina, a hotel, a golf course and shopping centers on 2,700 acres.

But recently, faced with opposition from environmentalists and others, Baldwin has reduced its proposals to 4,000 homes, a hotel, a golf course and shopping centers on 1,000 acres.

“We’re very positive about our prospects” for going ahead with the Ormond Beach project, a Baldwin spokeswoman said. She said Baldwin also hopes to build a housing development elsewhere in Oxnard and has other projects in Thousand Oaks, Calabasas and Camarillo.

Smith, whose Martin V. Smith & Associates developed the Financial Plaza project adjoining the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard, expects to level most of the buildings in his aging Wagon Wheel complex, less than a mile north of the Plaza.

He hopes to replace Wagon Wheel’s motel, restaurants and most of its other businesses with office buildings, a residential high-rise and stores, according to Smith Vice President Sue Van Kamp. “We’re in the earliest stages of the planning,” she said. “We’ll be talking to city and state officials about it soon, but it will be 10 years or so before construction begins.”