Design OKd for Downtown Garage

Inching tentatively toward a final plan, Ventura’s Design Review Committee on Monday evening approved a basic design for a 500-space downtown parking structure, but pledged to continue working with the architect to fine-tune the details.

The four-story parking structure is planned for a lot at the corner of Santa Clara and California streets. It is intended to supply parking for the hordes of moviegoers expected to throng to a 10-screen multiplex theater planned for downtown. Providing parking is part of the city’s contract with developer Ventura Multi-Cinema LLC.

Committee members have worked for months with architect Cliff Smith to make the structure look as much like an urban building as possible. Well-disguised parking structures in downtown San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara were used as models.

The architect used hues that blend with the pinks and ochers of California Street for the proposed structure, and tried to echo the lines of surrounding buildings. But many Ventura residents and committee members expressed concern that the imposing structure still looks too much like what it is: a four-story cement box to park cars.

As the design stands now, windows in the building will be glass-less and square or rectangular. An elevator tower will stand at the structure’s western corner and release people onto a grassy plot at the corner of Santa Clara and California. The roof of the tower will be peaked and possibly tiled. At street level along Santa Clara, queen palms and jacaranda trees will be planted to form a leafy walkway for pedestrians.

The city has budgeted $3 million to build the structure, but the architect says it will take more to achieve the level of design desired by committee members.

Bill Hatcher, a Ventura city planner, says the City Council will have to approve more money before the design can be further refined. He hopes that will happen sometime in January.

The developer says it will need to begin building by the end of February to finish the parking structure by November. The multiplex would open, at the earliest, the following month.

The design review committee also gave final approval to architect Mark Fehlman’s movie theater design--an Art Deco building similar to others downtown--and construction is scheduled to begin in April.