Camarillo OKs 39-Acre Retail Center

Believing the city needs to expand its retail markets, the Camarillo City Council gave unanimous approval Wednesday to a proposed 39-acre shopping center near Las Posas Road and the Ventura Freeway.

The facility, to be anchored by a 116,000-square-foot Target department store, will also house several large retailers, a handful of restaurants and a service station.

Potential tenants for the site include a Ross Dress for Less; a Bed, Bath and Beyond; a Pep Boys auto parts store, and a Big 5 sporting goods store.

“I think this would be a good use for the site,” Councilwoman Charlotte Craven said earlier Wednesday. “Right now, to get a lot of products, our residents have to drive out of the city. This facility should cut down on a lot of that.”

Craven added that the shopping center should keep more sales tax dollars in the city.

Mayor Mike Morgan said the new retail center should dovetail nicely with the factory outlet mall whose stores will begin opening today.

But following the vote, Morgan said he will not be able to support further development around nearby Camarillo Airport unless improvements are made to local roads to handle the increased traffic that the developments will bring.

“I think this is a good development, but we have to improve our ability to handle the traffic,” Morgan said. “Any development that we look at in the future out there will have to have some serious traffic mitigation measures.”

The only concerns to surface about the project have been voiced by state aviation and geological officials. Those officials have said the center may be too close to one of the flight paths to Camarillo Airport and that earthquake faults run throughout the property.

City officials, however, said a recent aviation consultant’s study showed that the chances of a plane crashing on the site, adjacent to the airport, were pegged at one mishap every 75 years. They added that before the final location of the stores is determined, a more detailed geological study will be conducted.

Reed Henkelman, a vice president of CB Commercial, the firm that is overseeing the center’s leasing arrangements, said the mix of tenants and restaurants and the site itself is perfect for Camarillo.

“This is a city that is starved for retailers,” Henkelman said. “We think the center goes a long way toward filling that need.”

The $45-million center, which received the unanimous blessing of the city Planning Commission at its Feb. 7 meeting, is being proposed by two Orange County-based developers: JB2H and Norcan, Inc.

Carole Nordahl, executive director of the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce, praised the shopping center’s development, saying that it was closely tailored to the responses given in an informal survey of residents conducted last summer.

“It’s uncanny, but the people who responded to our survey said they would want to see a Target or a Target-like store built in the area,” Nordahl said. “The chamber’s position is that we think this is an attractive addition to the city which will make life a little easier for local consumers.”

Developers said construction on the new mall should begin this summer and be completed early next spring.

Proposed Camarillo Town Center The following stores are among about 20 shops and restaurants considering leasing space at the Camarillo site, which is now farmland.