Proposed Mall Seen as Boon to City Coffers : Development: But report says plan by Seventh-day Adventist Church could drain business from existing stores in Thousand Oaks.

A massive shopping center proposed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church could bring to the city annual taxable retail sales of between $59.5 million and $102.5 million, but could also undercut existing Thousand Oaks stores, according to a report discussed Monday by the Planning Commission.

The report by a Los Angeles-based consulting firm said the proposed center could be a financial boon, generating between $590,000 and $1 million in annual sales tax. Without the center, or one like it, Thousand Oaks could lose shopping dollars to nearby communities that already have regional shopping plazas, the report said.

But the center, planned for the church’s property just north of the Ventura Freeway at Wendy Drive, could also drain business away from such existing retailers as the K mart center and Office Depot.

That balance between new and old stores concerns the planning commissioners.

“I want to be able to see what the overall impact is going to be,” Commissioner John Powers said. “Is it going to starve the existing businesses, or is it going to be a shot in the arm and bring people in?”

At Monday night’s hearing, Commissioner Linda Parks said she was fearful that the $120-million Newbury Park project would lure shoppers who might otherwise frequent the city’s Thousand Oaks Boulevard business strip.

“I’m most concerned about what will happen on the boulevard,” she said.

The economic analysis is the second on the Adventist project, which would create not only a shopping center but also a campus of school facilities, housing and a retirement complex on 458 acres of church property in Newbury Park.

The first report was issued in August, 1994, several months before the Planning Commission rejected key portions of the project. Church officials then revised their proposal to reduce the housing, and brought the plans back to the commission this month.

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The proposed 725,000-square-foot center would include four distinct shopping plazas, each with its own anchor store. Proposed tenants would include restaurants, specialty shops, discount stores and a movie complex.

The report bases its projections on three forecasts for population growth in Thousand Oaks and surrounding communities. Should the population stay the same over the next five years, the center would directly or indirectly increase the city’s overall annual taxable retail sales by $59.5 million and result in $590,000 in new sales taxes to the city.

In that scenario, however, the center would heavily affect existing stores, draining about $100 million from them. Although the city would still see a net gain in sales and taxes, it would come at a cost to such retail centers as the Conejo Valley Plaza, the North Ranch Plaza and the Westlake Plaza, the report said.

Under the best-case scenario, if the area’s population increases by 4,000 households over the next five years, the center could bring in more than $100 million in taxable sales. Although its impact on neighboring stores would be lessened, the center would still draw some business away from a few stores relatively close to the site.

Despite the drain on current stores, the report concluded that the center or one like it could keep Conejo Valley shoppers from going elsewhere. Without it, the city may eventually lose sales revenues to nearby communities, including Camarillo and Oxnard, with their own regional shopping centers.

“In this sense, the center can be viewed not just as a means of increasing net sales in the city or accommodating natural growth, but also as a defensive measure to prevent losses to new and aggressive retail competitors outside the city,” the report said.