Road to Riches? : Ventura Boulevard Businesses Look for New Life as Camarillo Weighs Redevelopment

For some business owners in the city’s oldest commercial district, the crisp scent of opportunity wafts through the air.

Antiques stores, an upscale billiard house and a handcrafted doll shop all have opened along Ventura Boulevard within the past few months, raising hopes that the 10-block string of squat buildings and specialty shops will no longer be ignored by Camarillo shoppers and tourists.

But other merchants complain that they can barely scratch out a living on “the Boulevard,” and that city officials have done next to nothing to help lure customers to the old commercial core.

“People just don’t know we’re here,” said Roger Jaep, who owns the Past Times Bookshop. “They go to the malls instead. I’ll have to leave after Christmas if business doesn’t pick up.”

Years of talk among city leaders about what to do with Old Town may come to a head this afternoon, as a City Council subcommittee debates whether to form a redevelopment agency that could oversee vast improvements in the area.

“There are certain opportunities and benefits to having an agency,” said Matthew A. Boden, the city planning director of more than two decades. “It provides a means for people to do things that might not otherwise get done.” Camarillo is one of the few cities in Ventura County with no redevelopment agency.

“We investigated at various times through the years the possibility of having a [redevelopment] project,” Boden said. “It just never was implemented. It may or may not be this time.”

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A number of factors have contributed to the area’s economic downturn. The new Camarillo Factory Outlet draws thousands of shoppers about two miles up the street, and road crews have been tearing up the freeway interchange at Carmen Drive for months, making it inconvenient to get to Ventura Boulevard.

Councilman Stanley J. Daily, who sits on the committee that will hear the report this afternoon, said the redevelopment agency is needed. But he said he is not sure what improvements might help lure customers to Old Town.

Redevelopment agencies allow cities to collect millions of dollars in tax-increment funds--new income that is generated when private investment causes property taxes to rise.

The new funds are diverted to a special account that agencies can borrow against, raising money for improvement projects or providing low-interest loans to property owners to spruce up their buildings.

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Boden said the city has never turned its back on the Boulevard. For example, the city spent more than $1 million in the 1970s to place utility lines underground, build curbside planters and install larger trees, he said.

“If we get a request from a business, we go down there and see what we can do to help,” Boden said.

But some Ventura Boulevard business owners said the city needs to do more than plant trees and spruce up sidewalks to revitalize the area.

Dorothy Walden, owner of Dorothy’s Chuck Wagon cafe, said more parking would help her business. The planters built by the city in the 1970s are too high and get in the way of pedestrians, she said.

The city-imposed smoking ban adopted last year did not help, either, Walden said. “Business never did pick up after that,” she said.

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Many Camarillo merchants say redevelopment has worked well in other cities, and said they look forward to breathing some new economic life into their own downtown.

“We have to do things like Ventura is doing, the ArtWalks and the street fairs,” said Chris Lorelli, owner of Cycle Surgeon and president of the Old Town Merchants Assn.

“You can’t just do the superficial stuff and expect customers to come down,” he said. “It doesn’t happen that way.”

Angela Tringali, who owns Angela’s Miniature World nearby, said the area needs to be better promoted so potential customers know what Ventura Boulevard has to offer.

“We’ve talked about it over and over,” said Tringali, who said most of her business is done through the mail. “There needs to be a reason for people to come here.”

Despite the pessimism of some business owners, the Boulevard has attracted a significant amount of investment in recent months.

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The owners of the new businesses say it is not up to government to bail them out. Rather, they say, it is business savvy, great service and unusual products that pay off.

“A lot of people said to me, ‘Oh, you don’t want to be over there. There’s nothing going on over there,’ ” said Clarence Bales, who recently opened Black Tie Billiards.

“But I’m optimistic that wherever I go, as long as I take things upon myself to make things happen, then it pretty much will,” he said.

Just down the road, Guy Maison and Rochelle Elleton have sunk a sizable chunk of money into Augusta’s Showroom, a wide storefront full of antiques and estate sale collectibles.

They are doing business exactly where they wanted.

“I could have relocated anywhere, but Camarillo is the closest you’ll find to a geographical paradise,” said Maison, who recently closed his and Elleton’s Oxnard shop.

“The antique buyers travel from Los Angeles to Ventura to Santa Barbara,” he said. “These people are going to see us first.”