VENTURA : Agreement Closer on Film-Retail Complex

Negotiations among the city, developers and would-be tenants for the proposed multiplex theater and retail center in downtown Ventura are inching closer to agreement, Ventura officials say.

“In the next 30 days we should have our side of the project together,” Everett Millais, Ventura’s community services director, told a City Council subcommittee Wednesday. “It’s our goal to bring it back [to the city Redevelopment Agency] by August.”

The multimillion-dollar proposal is considered key to the city’s ambitious plans to breathe new life into Ventura’s struggling commercial core.

Burbank developer Victor K. Georgino is working with the AMC Theaters chain to secure a long-term lease on a huge movie house at Palm and Main streets.

In conjunction with the theater proposal, Weirick Properties of Pasadena is planning an upscale shopping and entertainment center alongside the movie house that promoters say would transform the block into a regional tourist destination.

“The theater developer is in dead-serious negotiations with AMC,” said James D. Ludwig, the city’s redevelopment consultant. AMC “has put in writing their interest” in moving to downtown Ventura.

But the retail proposal has been slowed by its failure to secure tenants in that portion of the project, developers said.

“Some of the major tenants want to see the theater go in before they’ll commit,” said Richard Weirick. “That’s what we’re finding.

“AMC would have to sign the lease agreements before we could find a tenant,” he said. “The whole project depends on the theater.”