Residents Tour Mall to Offer Concerns and Ideas on Expansion : Retailing: About 60 people accompany city officials and architects on Buenaventura walk-through. Proposal calls for $50-million upgrade over next two years.

Sporting sneakers and water bottles, curious and concerned Ventura residents embarked on a city-sponsored walking tour of the Buenaventura Mall on Saturday to learn more about its proposed expansion.

Mall owners plan to spend about $50 million to upgrade the shopping center over the next two years, adding two new anchor stores--Robinsons-May and Sears--to the mall’s existing anchors--J.C. Penney and Broadway.

Developers and city officials still are negotiating an agreement that would return nearly $20 million in future sales tax to investors over the next two decades, while bringing in millions for the city.

Officials hope to present a polished proposal to the City Council by November.

In the meantime, planners and architects are ironing out the design of the new mall. They organized Saturday’s walking tour to solicit ideas from the public and hear residents’ concerns.

“It is an interactive process today,” Steve Chase, project manager for the city, told the group of about 60 residents. “We are heading into the decision-making phase and it is important that we get the feedback so it can be the best [project] it can be.”

Planning commissioners Sandy Smith and Ted Temple led two groups of about 30 residents each on a tour of the mall’s exterior, explaining where a proposed sound wall would go and how close a new three-story Sears building would be from residences.

“This is the corner of the building right here,” Smith said, tapping his hand on a tall orange traffic cone. Preliminary designs for the department store, which would be built on the west side of the mall, would place it just 56 feet from Dunning Street, which concerned local residents.

“I think that issue has to be addressed,” said Eileen Riddle, who lives on Dunning Street.

Riddle specifically asked Sears architect Les Cooley, who participated in the tour, to change the design so the loading dock and trash dumpsters would not be so close to the residential area.

“I think you need some compromise,” she said.

The placement of the Sears building was just one of the concerns raised Saturday by residents, most of whom live near the mall. Among their suggestions to the developer and city planners were:

* Build a 15-foot sound wall between Dunning Street and the mall.

* Close Ocean Avenue, which connects Dunning Street to the mall parking lot, and create a cul-de-sac where Dunning meets Main Street to prevent through traffic. Residents want these road improvements completed before mall construction begins.

* Built a separate sound wall along Main Street to protect residents in the Lemon Grove Avenue area from street noise.

Among the residents to come out Saturday morning for the tour were Dunning Street neighbors Bessie Hamlet and Jean Ringo, who adamantly want a sound wall and a cul-de-sac to shelter their homes from noise and traffic.

“We would like to have it all closed off,” said the 88-year-old Hamlet, who has lived on Dunning Street since 1933.

But that proposal angers some residents on nearby Lang Street.

“My concern is that if they close Dunning, where is the traffic going to go? Over to my street,” Lang Street resident Agnes Henderson said.

City officials said they welcomed suggestions from residents and told neighbors there was still time to address their concerns before a final proposal is presented to the Planning Commission for approval next month.

For their part, residents said they welcomed an opportunity to vent their concerns.

“They’re trying,” Henderson said of city planners. “They can’t please everybody.”