Cities Square Off in Buenaventura Mall Trial

An attorney for the city of Oxnard accused Ventura city officials Thursday of trying to ram through a $100-million project to expand the Buenaventura Mall by dodging public scrutiny and cutting corners on its environmental review.

“They did it to move fast,” Oxnard’s attorney, Bruce Tepper, said during the one-day trial in Ventura County Superior Court on a lawsuit aimed at halting the expansion.

But Ventura’s attorney in her opening statements countered that Ventura met all necessary state requirements when evaluating the environmental impacts of the ambitious project.

And she told a retired Los Angeles County judge, brought in to ensure impartiality, that the issues are not about increased traffic or noise, but about money.

“This is an economic competition case,” attorney Katherine E. Stone argued. “This is not about the environment.”

The city of Oxnard filed two lawsuits against Ventura last year after the Ventura City Council approved the mall expansion, which proposes to add two department stores now in Oxnard.

Under the plan, Sears and Robinsons-May would relocate to Buenaventura Mall from The Esplanade in Oxnard. An additional 459,000 feet of retail space would be added, making Buenaventura the largest mall in the county.

At stake for Oxnard and Ventura are millions of dollars in sales-tax revenue.

Ventura officials say the mall expansion is badly needed to boost sales taxes on their side of the Santa Clara River. But Oxnard officials fear the flight of two of their major department stores will devastate sales tax receipts.

Stone urged Judge J. Kimball Walker to not allow environmental issues to be clouded by economic rivalry. She said Ventura adopted a project last year significantly scaled down from a proposal in 1992.

Rather than conduct another environmental impact report on the scaled-down proposal, she said the city prepared an addendum to the report compiled for the larger proposal, which is allowed under state guidelines.

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But Oxnard’s Tepper took issue with the addendum, arguing it was not properly circulated for public review and is not an adequate study of the project’s potential environmental impacts.

“We are dealing with a process that was flawed in its inception,” Tepper said, asking the judge to nullify the environmental approvals.

“Are you suggesting these 18 volumes be taken down to the dump,” Walker interrupted, “and the city of Ventura start from scratch?”

No, Tepper answered. But Ventura should be required to reevaluate many of the report’s findings because the 1996 project is not the same as the one proposed in 1992 on which the original environmental impact report was based, he said.

The environmental issues are one portion of the extensive litigation battle the two cities have fought during the past year and the first matter the judge addressed Thursday.

Oxnard also joined with five Ventura residents to file a separate lawsuit that alleges the contract negotiated between Ventura and its mall developers is a gift of public funds.

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Although a judge ruled last year that Oxnard has no standing in that case, the five individuals are still pushing their lawsuit.

Subsequent lawsuits were filed targeting leases with the developer approved by the city in September. A trial date has not been set for those.

“We call this ‘Mall 1,’ ” said Steve Chase, assistant to the Ventura city manager and project coordinator for the mall deal. “ ‘Mall 2’ is the second group of lawsuits coming at us later this spring.”

Meanwhile, developers said they will not break ground on the mall renovation and expansion until the legal issues are resolved. Whether some minor, less expensive, work can begin sooner remains a question.

“We are exploring whether anything can be done,” said Rick Bayer, general counsel for Macerich Co., which recently bought Buenaventura Mall and two other shopping centers in Fresno and Huntington Beach for a total of $125 million.

The Ventura mall will now be owned, managed and leased by the same company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Macerich known as Macerich Buenaventura Limited Partnership.

“We feel confident this is going to be resolved in our favor,” Bayer said. “We are just eager for it to get finished.”

The developer and the city have agreed to spend about $50 million to upgrade the aging retail structure as well as adjacent streets and parking areas. That investment will be matched by $50 million that four department stores are expected to spend to renovate stores or add new ones, city officials said.

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J.C. Penney and Macy’s, which already occupy space in the mall, want to expand and remodel their facilities. And Sears and Robinsons-May have committed to leave The Esplanade in Oxnard, Ventura officials say.

But those actions are unlikely until the legal issues are resolved, attorneys said.

Arguments before Judge Walker concluded late Thursday afternoon. Walker told the attorneys he planned to take the case under submission for “some considerable time,” but added that he was eager to be done with the complex case.

“I don’t want this around my neck forever,” he said.

Whatever Walker’s ruling, attorneys for each city said they expect the decision to be appealed.

“I think we are a long way from being through with this,” Ventura’s acting City Atty. Amy Albano said.

After the trial concluded, Oxnard’s Tepper said the lion’s share of information in the case was filed over the past months, giving the judge a sizable amount of material to consider.

“I would expect he will take his time,” Tepper said. “There is plenty to keep him occupied in the next few weeks.”