VENTURA : City Negotiating for Historic Grocery Site

Ventura will enter negotiations with a downtown Ventura developer who plans to raze all but two walls of the historic Peirano Grocery building on Main Street, the City Council decided Monday.

Tom Wood, president of Ventura Realty, and his father, Jack Wood, will negotiate with the city on the firm’s proposal to buy the city’s oldest building and develop the surrounding land.

The project seemed to be in jeopardy earlier this summer when Ventura Realty, the original funding source, backed out of the proposal.

But company President Tom Wood promised the council Monday that he would find other financiers for the development.

Wood hopes to knock down all but two walls of the old grocery, which is now owned by the city. That would expose a Spanish lavanderia underneath, which he intends to restore and surround with a courtyard of restaurants, shops and offices.

Peirano’s Market operated on Main Street from 1877 to 1987, when the city bought it from the Peirano family with the intention of preserving it as a historic landmark.

The lavanderia, a 26-by-30-foot tile-lined pool, may have served as the laundry for San Buenaventura Mission, which is across the street from the Peirano building.

Angry residents with sentimental attachments to the grocery jammed the council chambers in March when the council made the initial decision to negotiate with Wood and Ventura Realty, the largest property owner in downtown Ventura.

For months after the rancorous March meetings, Ventura city officials tried to open a negotiating agreement with Ventura Realty, but the company’s shareholders balked at taking on such a controversial project.

On Monday, a handful of incensed residents returned to City Hall to plead their case again.

“Peirano’s building was a grocery store and many lives were attached to it over many years,” said Ventura resident Jo Rogers. “It may not be of major historical significance, but it is our history.”

But with the price tag running at $430,000 just to bring Ventura’s oldest brick building up to seismic standards, many council members say they are not averse to tearing the structure down.