Mall’s Long-Awaited Expansion Starts

Hoping to lure shoppers who have been trekking to more upscale retail centers from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara, developers and city officials broke ground Wednesday on the long-awaited $100-million expansion of Buenaventura Mall.

Wielding shovels and wearing hard hats, they crowded on the aging shopping center’s parking lot and declared that the mall is about to get the boost it needs to compete with nearby retail outlets.

“We’re going to make this the town center for Ventura County,” developer Arthur Coppola boasted as a crowd of 200 mall boosters sipped fruit juice and nibbled hors d’oeuvres. “It’s going to be the hub for the future. You guys are going to see a lot of things get torn up. It’s going to be very dramatic.”

The ritzy trimmings at the midmorning ceremony were a sharp contrast to the reality inside the mall. Shoppers, city leaders and mall officials agree that the center, which opened more than 30 years ago, has fallen into decline and far behind neighboring competitors.

But after the expansion and renovation are completed--construction is expected to be finished in two years--officials hope that Buenaventura Mall will be a vibrant regional shopping mecca and major sales tax engine for Ventura.

For starters, the mall is going to nearly double its size, growing from about 683,000 to 1.26 million square feet. That will make Buenaventura Mall the largest in Ventura County, according to Santa Monica-based Macerich Co., which owns the mall.

Much of the added size will come from two new anchor stores--Sears and Robinsons-May--which will move from the nearby Esplanade mall in Oxnard. The developers see the quadruple-punch of Sears, Robinsons-May and the two present anchor stores--J. C. Penney and Macy’s--as the foundation for boosting the mall’s customer base.

A new section for the Sears store will be built during the expansion, and Penney’s is scheduled to relocate to a new department store being built in the mall’s parking lot.

Robinsons-May will move into Penney’s old spot, and Macy’s plans an extensive renovation of its store.

With the four anchors in place, mall developers say they will increase the number of stores in the mall from about 80 to more than 200 by opening a second floor.

Coppola, chief executive of Macerich Co., said those stores could include many new apparel shops--such as the Gap, Ann Taylor and Talbots--as well as some hot specialty stores--perhaps ESPN’s planned chain for sports enthusiasts or the Disney Store.

Mall owners also plan an extensive renovation of the center’s interior, replacing the mix-and-match color scheme with neutral whites and skylights to create an ambience of “timeless elegance.”

“Take a good look at it now because it won’t look anything like this in two years,” Macerich Co. Vice President John Genovese said.

Coppola said mall make-overs are typical in an industry driven by trends. He said there is no reason that the mall, with a prime location in an affluent county, cannot thrive.

“If you took a map and were looking for the [location] for the strongest retail mall in Ventura County, this would be it,” he said.

Ventura officials have been pushing mall expansion plans for nearly a decade, saying such a move could boost the growth of the city’s sales tax receipts. The issue has become even more urgent in recent months.

A recent UC Santa Barbara report points out that the city’s retail sales grew by only 1.5% in 1996, compared to 4.3% growth countywide. Much of that countywide growth comes from the success of new retail centers such as The Promenade at Westlake and the Camarillo Premium Outlet stores.

Ventura’s mall plans have been slowed by numerous hurdles.

Those have included Measure S, an anti-mall initiative that attempted to get the city to rescind a financing arrangement with the mall. The agreement calls for the mall to pay $12.6 million upfront for public improvements, while the city will pay back $32.3 million over 20 years through increased tax revenue. Ventura voters defeated Measure S last year.

Meanwhile, Oxnard officials have pressed ahead with lawsuits against the city of Ventura, alleging that Ventura did not fully consider the environmental impacts that the mall’s expansion would have on Oxnard. Ventura’s financial deal with the mall owners has also been questioned by Oxnard.

Oxnard officials worry that losing Sears and Robinsons-May will drain their city’s sales tax coffers. They refuse to concede that the two stores will leave.

Oxnard Councilman Tom Holden called Wednesday’s ceremony at Buenaventura Mall “more posturing than reality as far as the future of the malls are concerned.”

Predictably, there was some sniping by Ventura officials at their neighbors across the Santa Clara River.

Ventura Mayor Jack Tingstrom said some “outside pressure” had held up the mall’s expansion plans.

“I won’t mention those outside pressures, but you guys should feel guilty if you go across the river” to shop, Tingstrom joked to the crowd.

For the most part, though, there was optimism at the mall Wednesday.

At John T’s, a quirky shop that sells cigars, mugs and other gifts, owner Larry Muro said customer traffic has dwindled in recent years. Some have even asked if the departure of stores such as Walden Books meant that the mall was about to close, he said.

But the expansion will bring plenty of new stores and shoppers, while leaving room for small shop owners like himself, Muro predicted.

“We have a niche in the market,” he said. “Kids and adults like us.”

Doug Ringo, who lives nearby and attended the groundbreaking ceremony, agreed that the expansion is what the mall needs.

“To me, what’s glaring is the vacancies,” he said. “If you bring in the these big companies, the smaller merchants will come too.”