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Panel Deadlocks on Center’s Renovation

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With the city’s planning commissioners deadlocked over whether to allow renovations at a Newbury Park shopping center, the City Council will have to decide the project’s fate.

Early Tuesday, commissioners split 2 to 2 over proposed renovations to Newbury Park Center, at Newbury Road and Giant Oak Avenue. The project would demolish the existing shops in stages, replacing them with 91,150 square feet of retail space spread over seven buildings.

The largest building--38,000 square feet--would house a multiscreen theater run by CinemaStar Luxury Theaters of Oceanside.

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Although several commissioners agreed that the shopping center needed renovation, they balked at the scope of the project, which calls for removing six oak trees and part of a hillside behind the present buildings.

Commissioners Marilyn Carpenter and Linda Parks also worried that, with several new shopping centers proposed or under construction in Thousand Oaks, the city may not have enough shoppers to support all the new commercial projects.

“We have to be careful because there are only so many shoppers in the pot,” Parks said.

Commission Chairman Forrest Frields said he had reservations about the project but did not think that commissioners should judge it based on the number of competing shopping plazas nearby.

Frields and Commissioner John Powers opposed Parks’ motion to reject the project. Carpenter sided with Parks, while Commissioner Ronald Polanski, who had missed an earlier meeting on the plans, abstained from voting.

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