Damaged Stores Given Deadline for Cleanup : Simi Valley: Owners of quake-devastated Pic ‘N’ Save and Sears Outlet have until Jan. 17. Council offers redevelopment funds to help repair or tear down the structures.

The owners of two Simi Valley stores ravaged by the Jan. 17 earthquake have until one year after the devastating event to clean up their property, the City Council decided Monday.

The council, responding to complaints from neighbors that the vacant Pic ‘N’ Save and Sears Outlet on Tapo Street are eyesores that attract transients, agreed to help the landlords repair or tear down their properties as quickly as possible.

“I think we’d all like to see this problem taken care of,” Mayor Greg Stratton said. “We don’t want to see those buildings falling down and empty for too much longer.”

Both buildings were red-tagged after the quake, indicating major damage that includes collapsed roofs and cracked walls.

The council asked the property owners to board up broken windows and offered to give them city redevelopment money to help with the cost of renovating or rebuilding.

“The dollars are available,” Councilman Bill Davis said. “If they want to come in and work with the city, I’m sure we would be happy to work with them.”

Sears is hoping to tear down its aging 30,000-square-foot center and replace it with a new building at the site, said part-owner Lawrence Morse, a Beverly Hills accountant.

Before that can happen, the company had hoped to find an anchor tenant to join them on the Tapo Street property, a search that has proved fruitless. Sears has also been waiting to hear whether the neighboring Pic ‘N’ Save would share the cost of demolishing the buildings, Morse said.

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But Pic ‘N’ Save officials have announced plans to sell their store and relocate to another site in the city. Sears is considering buying the property, Morse said, but would not do so unless it could first find tenants willing to locate there.

“We’re very anxious to do something with this property, and we’re working hard to make something happen,” Morse said. “Any help the city can give is certainly welcome.”

The council agreed to give the landlords until Jan. 17, 1995, and then re-evaluate progress on the properties.

“I think it is reasonable to give them a full year before we do anything drastic, like take legal action,” Davis said. “If January rolls around and nothing’s been done, well that’s another story.”

The city could choose to condemn the buildings and impose fines if they determine the property owners have not taken sufficient action.

Meanwhile, nearby resident Eleanor Kieffer said she is concerned about children and transients breaking through the chain-link fence that surrounds the stores.

“I passed by there yesterday and somebody had taken a wire cutter and broke the locks off,” Kieffer said. “It isn’t safe.”

Stratton said he shares residents’ concerns.

“Squatters are getting in there, and as its starts getting cold, they’re going to start making little fires to warm themselves,” Stratton said. “The next thing you get is a raging inferno, which is something I think we’d all like to avoid.”