Demographically Correct Thousand Oaks Losing Quaint Past

Everywhere you look, the signs are obvious: This city is turning into some kind of suburban highbrow mecca.

Coffeehouses and monolithic bookstores and trendy restaurants and fashionable clothing shops seem to be popping up everywhere.

The Oaks mall is attracting tonier tenants such as Talbotts, Nine West, Williams Sonoma and, soon, the KCET Store of Knowledge. Even the vaunted Bristol Farms gourmet market--which carries everything from the latest microbrews to exotic Kobe beef at $129 a pound--is on its way to the city. From cow town to increasingly cosmopolitan city in one decade--what a transformation.

Sure, Thousand Oaks has been known as an upper-middle-class enclave for years now. And no one is going to mistake the city’s newfound conveniences for San Francisco or even Santa Barbara any time soon.

But until recently, Thousand Oaks had a reputation as a somewhat staid bedroom town--a place where residents had to venture to Los Angeles for serious shopping and anything approaching intellectual stimulation or culinary experimentation. That, moreover, was the way residents wanted it.

My, how things have changed. Between the sushi bars and modern multiplexes, the yuppie-clogged cooking supply shops, and, of course, the $64-million Civic Arts Plaza, there is life in Thousand Oaks. At night. On weekends.

Some residents even say that driving to L.A. is becoming a thing of the past.

“I think Thousand Oaks was lacking, but things are changing fast now,” said Cathy Schutz, president of the Westlake Joint Board, a coalition of more than 40 homeowners’ associations that has helped recruit certain retailers to the city. “It seems like we’re going to cover all the bases pretty soon.”

However, the rash of chic chain stores and specialty shops that has begun to change the face of Thousand Oaks is not without its deleterious side effects, critics warn.

Mayor Andy Fox, for one, said he is worried the city could lose the very quality that attracted people in the first place--its laid-back pace.

“The city absolutely needs to be careful of intensifying the big-city atmosphere,” he said. “We’re a bedroom community. We need to stay that way.”

And what about the little guys, the local mom-and-pop businesses that have nourished the community for years? What’s happening to them?

Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski said she welcomes the arrival of unique new retailers to Thousand Oaks. But she is deeply concerned that homogenous chain stores may drive small entrepreneurs out of business and destroy what remains of the city’s homespun character, she said.

“Convenience has a cost,” Zukowski said. “If you want something near your house, or in town, it will have an affect on your town. If you want to move the attractions of Los Angeles to Thousand Oaks, you are also going to have to face the drawbacks.”

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Already, many small businesses have met an untimely end as strip mall owners look to replace them with more well-known names. Erika’s Bake Shop, a popular Westlake bakery, has come to epitomize such cases.

The owners of the Westlake Plaza Shopping Center declined to renew owner Dieterich Heinzelmann’s lease last year, choosing instead to make way for a large Blockbuster Video.

More than 2,000 customers signed petitions asking the shopping center management to let Erika’s stay. The plaza’s owners, TCW Realty Fund of Encino, responded by agreeing to contribute $40,000 to help the 25-year-old bakery move. But Heinzelmann is out of business today, unable to afford the relocation cost.

The owners of Nicki’s Coffee Espressions recently learned that their business, located at the Janss Marketplace, may meet a similar fate.

Joe and Nicki Ehret, a 60-something couple who have lived in Thousand Oaks for more than two decades, decided to spend their life savings three years ago and open up a coffee shop at the mall.

Thousand Oaks’ oldest shopping mall was about to begin a major overhaul, and the Ehrets figured that if they could get in early, they would end up with a prime location.

They were right: The Marketplace, which now features a multiplex, a Mervyn’s California clothing store and other new attractions, is becoming an increasingly popular destination.

But they were wrong to assume they would be part of the new renaissance. The mall’s managers, Westfield Corp. of Los Angeles, sent the Ehrets a letter earlier this month informing the business that it had 30 days to move out. Another coffee shop was moving into the mall.

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“We’re not kids anymore,” Joe Ehret said. “This is our last opportunity to do anything. It’s just a nightmare. To this day, no one has come out to talk to me in person about why this is happening.”

Hundreds of residents have signed a petition supporting Nicki’s Coffee Espressions, and several council members have said they want to do something about the Ehrets’ plight. Representatives for Westfield, which manages the mall for new owner Goldman Sachs, could not be reached for comment.

Councilman Mike Markey said he understands how hard it can be for a small business to survive in Thousand Oaks. He and relatives owned a muffin shop in Newbury Park during the late 1980s but had to bail out when people started going elsewhere, he said.

“I don’t think it’s evil or it’s bad,” Markey said of the new chain stores altering the city’s landscape. “It’s a change driven by the community. If you go to Borders on any given night, the place is packed.

“That’s still a small-town atmosphere, to go to a bookstore and listen to some jazz and have some coffee.”

Borders, a massive book, music and coffee shop, opened last November in the old Conejo Bowl. Thousand Oaks’ last bowling alley was once a lively place for families to go at night. Now Borders has become a major hangout.

Soon there will be two more oversized bookstores in the city--a Crown Books next to a Starbucks Coffee just up the street from Borders on Moorpark Road, and a Barnes and Noble on Westlake Boulevard in the Thousand Oaks Towne Center.

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Developer Rick J. Caruso’s Towne Center, set to open late this year, is in many ways the new prototype for development in Thousand Oaks.

Caruso met with residents of the surrounding neighborhoods and delivered many of the upscale retailers they had requested, including Barnes and Noble and Bristol Farms. In turn, he won the residents’ overwhelming support.

The shopping center will even feature the world’s first Camp Disney, an elaborate arts, crafts and entertainment play land that will change decor with every new Disney animation epic.

“We’re very excited about that location,” said Jodi Taylor-Zens, a spokeswoman for Bristol Farms. “Thousand Oaks is one of the best markets we have ever seen.”

Not only were the demographics--age, income and wealth--right, but the community exhibited the sort of tightknit family orientation the company looks for.

Because Bristol Farms has only four other sites, Taylor-Zens stressed that the market would have a homey feel. And like the Bristol Farms that recently opened in Woodland Hills, she said the Thousand Oaks market will be lined with colorful murals depicting the local history of the area.

As the oldest business in the Conejo Valley, the Oakdale Market, founded in 1927, is part of that local history. Known for its quality meats and other fine groceries, the market has long filled a special niche in Thousand Oaks, catering to wealthy residents as well as old cowboy types who know their steaks.

For the Oakdale Market, the arrival of gourmet stores such as Bristol Farms is awful news, said owner Charlie Weiss, 50, who took the business over from his father.

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“The smaller guy’s going to get a smaller and smaller slice of the pie,” he said. “Bristol Farms could care less about people like me.

“I think there’s always going to be a place for a business where they know your name and remember what you like. I have a pretty good meat business, and I could say, ‘OK, I’m going to specialize in meat.’ But even that may not work against Gelsons [gourmet market] and Bristol Farms.”

Because of Thousand Oaks’ above-average standard of living, retailers will continue coming to the city, said Councilwoman Elois Zeanah. The key for city leaders, she said, is balancing the demands of residents for more variety while making sure that Thousand Oaks does not begin to look like Los Angeles.

“We have built a good community,” she said. “We have the luxury of having a lot of good stores interested in Thousand Oaks. But we have to be careful not to let everyone come to town.”