Oxnard Expected to OK Downtown Theater Complex

Not content with beating rival Ventura in the race for a minor league baseball team, Oxnard could build a downtown movie theater first as well.

Municipal officials said Thursday the City Council is expected to approve a 25-year lease agreement by mid-December to bring a 14-screen movie theater complex to a vacant, city-owned lot on A Street between 4th and 5th streets.

Seen as a cornerstone of downtown revitalization, the $8.5-million to $9.5-million development will also include 10,000 square feet of commercial space.

“The important thing is it provides a magnet for people downtown,” said Councilman Andres Herrera.

Construction could start as soon as January with the 2,800-seat theater’s completion slated for July, City Manager Tom Frutchey said.

“I’m not sure we can meet that timetable,” Herrera said. “It is ambitious. But it’s important to get something done, and we’ve had the groundwork laid for quite some time.”

Ventura expects to break ground on its 10-screen, 1,807-seat theater complex in the spring with completion planned nine months later.

Ventura has committed almost $8 million to build the theater and a four-story parking structure.

Oxnard will lend the developer federal money it has already secured for economic development to build the complex. The money will be paid back over the term of the land’s quarter-century lease, after which the building and land will revert to municipal ownership.

Pat Richardson, Ventura’s redevelopment director, said the city has a “big head start” on Oxnard and is committed to moving forward with its project. But it is possible Oxnard’s proposed development could affect Ventura’s, he added.

“It depends on whether they have a signed tenant,” he said. “I doubt if there’s going to be a movie theater in downtown [Ventura] as well as downtown Oxnard,” he added, commenting on the viability of two new theater complexes that close together.

Oxnard officials said developer Rex Swanson plans to formalize an agreement with a theater company soon. Swanson, president of El Segundo-based Metropolitan Development, has sought a tenant since December 1995.

In May Swanson said he had a theater chain lined up, but that theater chain backed out, he said last month. In May he estimated it would take two years to complete the project. Swanson did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

Like Ventura, Oxnard views a downtown movie theater as the crucial missing link to bringing people to the city center and spurring redevelopment.

City officials and the developer have agreed not to build a parking structure for the theater. City officials have said there are at least 2,400 spaces within a five-minute walk of the theater. Some critics contend that without a parking structure, downtown Oxnard could suddenly be faced with a parking shortage.

Municipal officials say the theater project would be completed at the same time as a planned but long-delayed realignment of A Street.

Green is a Times correspondent and Munoz is a staff writer.

* MOVIE COMPLEX Oxnard is expected to OK 14-screen theater. B6