Ventura Officials Shop Around for Mall Ideas : Development: Local leaders tour regional shopping complexes, seeking ways to upgrade Buenaventura center.

Some played board games, others slurped frozen yogurt.

And between the entertainment and snacks, about 30 Ventura officials and business leaders toured a series of shopping centers Friday, seeking ways to infuse charm and marketing savvy into the long-planned Buenaventura Mall expansion.

One day after Sears announced it would leave The Esplanade mall in Oxnard for a refurbished Ventura center, the Ventura City Council inspected four regional shopping complexes in its effort to jump-start local commerce.

Officials spent the day comparing the appearances and atmospheres of malls in Valencia, Arcadia, Pasadena and Northridge.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ventura,” Steve Chase, assistant to the city manager, told the group as it paused along a vibrant Old Pasadena retail square.

The daylong bus tour first stopped at the Valencia Town Center, a 3-year-old regional mall in Santa Clarita that features several restaurants, a multiplex theater and an outdoor carousel.

“This is almost exactly the size of what our store will be,” said Jim Word, manager of Ventura’s J.C. Penney, standing inside the Santa Clarita store. “It’ll have the same kind of layout and the same mix of merchandise.”

J.C. Penney has been integral in the expansion plans of the Buenaventura Mall owners, who plan to spend $50 million during the next two years, adding a second level of shops and two new anchors to their shopping center.

The J.C. Penney store will move to a new 125,000-square-foot building. Robinsons-May, The Esplanade’s other major tenant, announced in May that it would move into the building now occupied by J.C. Penney.

The Broadway department store will be the Buenaventura Mall’s fourth anchor when the renovation is completed by the end of 1997.

The City Council agreed to a rebate of almost $20 million in future sales taxes so developers could finance the expansion.

Portions of another $5 million in fees was deferred and waived under terms of a preliminary agreement reached in May. A formal agreement between the city and the developers is expected to go before the council this fall.

Developers said work on the mall is scheduled to begin later this year, with workers preparing the infrastructure improvements that the expanded mall will need.

Full-scale construction will begin next year--a schedule that pleased most business leaders.

“If they’re going to spend $18 million on Robinsons-May and another $11 million on J.C. Penney, that’s going to be great for Ventura,” said Jim Barroca, executive vice president of the Ventura Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ll finally be upscale,” Barroca said.

In evaluating the malls Friday, city officials looked for ways to beef up the allure of the Buenaventura Mall.

“Look at the difference between this place and the place we were before,” Planning Commissioner Ted Temple said, comparing the Santa Anita Fashion Park with the sunnier Valencia Town Center.

“This place is really dark and echoey,” he said. “Static.”

On the way out of the Robinsons-May in Arcadia, managers there presented each of the tour members with a red, white and blue gunny sack filled with colognes and perfumes.

“Do you think it’s worth $50?” City Manager Donna Landeros asked. “I might have to declare it.”

In Pasadena, where a regional mall sits near the historic old town area, Planning Commissioner Ingrid Elsel was impressed with the mix of shops, restaurants and activity.

“This is one of my favorite places,” she said. “I come here all the time. I think Ventura’s on the brink of something like this.”

Councilman Gary Tuttle walked through the J.C. Penney--only four weeks old--at the Northridge Fashion Center, a sprawling mall devastated by the January, 1994, earthquake.

“We’ll have quite a mall,” he said, looking around the well-lighted salesroom and striding across across faux marble floors. “Now we’ll have someplace to shop, I’m convinced of it.

“My wife’s convinced, too, and that kind of scares me.”