Firm Chosen to Propose Peirano Building Renewal

Despite concerns about pouring more money into a crumbling downtown landmark, city officials Monday night approved an exclusive negotiation agreement with a developer interested in restoring the 119-year-old Peirano Grocery building.

The deal with KL Associates gives the Oxnard firm two months to propose a plan and budget to salvage the abandoned, two-story structure.

The grocery, owned and run by three generations of Peiranos, was bought by the city several years ago for less than $200,000. A colorful old wall mural for Ghirardelli chocolate adorns the side of the Yankee-brick building, located across from the San Buenaventura Mission. It is one of nine Ventura sites on the National Historic Register.

Beneath part of the building is an even older site--a lavanderia used by the Chumash Indians in the 1700s. The tiled washing pool, unearthed in 1991, is linked to the mission’s ancient aqueduct system.

But the building has been boarded up for years as the town debates what to do with it. While some argue that the building should be razed, others seek its renovation either as a landmark or a restaurant that echoes Italian themes of yesteryear.

The disintegrating structure is in such disrepair that passersby can scrape adobe from between the bricks with their fingernails, and local firemen feared that the building would collapse on them in a recent fire.

Richard Keller of KL Associates said making the building safe and functional will cost more than the $500,000 suggested in the company’s preliminary proposal. An earlier estimate--before damage from this summer’s fire, and the last earthquake--already put costs above the $500,000 figure.

“It is often more costly to rebuild than to construct a new building,” said Keller, adding that a half-million dollars wouldn’t even be enough to restore the building to “shell condition”--a builder’s term for fixing up just the outer husk so that a tenant could move inside.

With restoration costs so steep, some City Council members are already voicing concern that the city simply cannot afford another pricey downtown redevelopment project.

Councilman Jim Monahan supported the contract but said he will need convincing to spend more money. “We have so many redevelopment projects going on, I don’t really know if we should start another one,” he said.

But Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures sees a fountain-side restaurant at Peirano’s as a possible part of a larger, more ambitious plan to revitalize the downtown.