Downtown Ventura Revitalization Looms Large for Candidates

Over the past five years the city of Ventura has pumped more than $15 million into its historic core, hoping to spark a downtown renaissance.

The signs of success are visible from one end of Main Street to the other: Queen palms punctuate new brick inlay sidewalks, colorful banners wave from faux antique lampposts in high season, and a new high-rise parking structure and 10-screen movie theater are set to open within nine months.

Revitalization is underway.

But as this year’s 10 City Council candidates intensify their campaigns-- blitzing the airwaves, stumping at neighborhood forums and jabbing election signs into local lawns--”downtown revitalization” remains a top priority of every candidate but two.

In the past, candidates argued that redevelopment was critical because Ventura’s prosperity hinges on drawing free-spending visitors downtown.

But with bed taxes--the best measure of local tourism--up 20% over the past two years, many candidates say the challenge now has shifted: Ventura needs to make downtown more attractive to Ventura residents.

“We’ve been the little golden nugget for L.A.,” says candidate Sandy Smith, who runs the Rosarito Beach Cafe on Main Street. “What we need to do is convince people in east Ventura that that’s true. People from L.A. say this is the best place in the world. People from the east side, all they talk about is vagrants.”

Adds candidate Doug Halter: “Downtown should be a shopping mecca--a place where you go to buy clothes, household items, gifts and food . . . It should be a place where people in Ventura would want to shop.”

Although much of the new council’s job will be to carry out plans already underway, there is still work to be done, city officials say.

Among the most pressing downtown issues the new council will have to face are: how to curb a rise in aggressive panhandling, how to lure more residential developers to invest in the city’s historic core, and deciding how or whether to regulate the mix of downtown businesses.

Of the 10 candidates vying for four open seats on the council in the Nov. 4 election, only Brian Lee Rencher flat-out opposes redevelopment.

He denounces it as a waste of taxpayer dollars, and argues that the government-subsidized transformation of downtown will drive out the mom-and-pop stores that make this seaside town unique.

“They’re trying to bring in national chains to increase the tax base,” Rencher said. “That would be all well and good if they were not trying to run people out of business.”

Carroll Dean Williams, who claims to have attended every council meeting since 1977, has few arguments with redevelopment, but questions candidates’ motivations in championing the issue.

“Candidates have promised to revitalize downtown. They get elected, and they still want to revitalize it,” he said. “When does it become revitalized? Is it going to take another 50 years?”

But when it comes to the future of downtown, most of the candidates praise the changes that have been made so far and pledge to follow through on the revitalization projects underway.

The shades of difference between them emerge only in the way they want to push forward.

Vagrants

Seven of the 10 candidates believe the city should more aggressively tackle the vagrant problem by stepping up enforcement of existing panhandling laws and increasing social services available to the homeless to try to get them off the street. They are Rencher, Mike Osborn, Brian Brennan, Doug Halter, Donna De Paola, Paul W. Thompson and Jim Monahan.

Osborn suggests that the city initiate regular police foot patrols downtown. Williams would like to see businesses get together and establish an adopt-a-block program, similar to the adopt-a-highway program used to keep stretches of freeway litter-free.

De Paola hopes to convince the city to move the downtown police storefront into the ground floor of the new parking structure, which she predicts is likely to become a magnet for people on the street seeking shelter.

Sandy Smith and Carl Morehouse admit they are stumped by the problem--along with almost every other city in America.

“If I had the answer, I would be on tour around the country sharing the insight with every community in the nation,” Smith said.

Mix of Businesses

In other Southern California communities that have brought in a movie theater as a catalyst for revitalization, such as Burbank, Pasadena and Santa Monica, rents have typically risen three to seven times. Ventura’s 10-screen multiplex theater is not scheduled to open until June, but downtown merchants say rents already are beginning to edge up.

The rising rents are sparking fears among some that Ventura may lose its trademark quaintness in the process.

Certain cities have passed ordinances to preserve a mix of retail businesses downtown. In Laguna Beach, for example, there are limits on certain types of stores, such as T-shirt businesses.

At least six of the Ventura candidates--Monahan, Morehouse, Halter, Thompson, Smith and Brennan--see some change in the mix of downtown stores as inevitable, as private investment begins to flood in. Though they love the mix of thrift and antique stores, and wonder how many will survive the transition, they would not like to see the city regulating business. “The market is going to decide what stays and what doesn’t,” Thompson said. Brennan agrees that the city should not impose any regulations that would force merchants to relocate. He envisions a process in which businesses that cannot afford the higher rents will simply move to the fringes of downtown, thereby expanding the business district.

“The sphere of influence of redevelopment will then expand, with the renaissance spilling up the Avenue, and over into midtown,” Brennan said.

Monahan and Morehouse think the city should search for ways to help businesses that may need to relocate, but did not give any details about what could be done.

Downtown merchants now generate about $35 million in annual taxable sales--or 3% of total retail sales in the city, officials say. With the new theater complex, that is projected to rise to 5%.

De Paola said she would like to see some big-name retail stores--like the Gap and Crate and Barrel--downtown, along with the thrift stores.

Smith has nothing against Crate and Barrel, but he sees specialty stores as the key to winning the retail battle against the “big box” stores in Camarillo and Oxnard.

Residential

City redevelopment manager Pat Richardson said that the next step in revitalizing downtown will be to lure more people to live there, to support the downtown businesses year round and to create a lively city center like the Ventura of yesteryear.

“The only way a downtown is going to thrive,” De Paola said, “is to have people living downtown. So we need to encourage this to happen . . . to encourage developers to come in and work with the housing allocations.”

The city has set aside 900 housing allocations for downtown, but so far developers have been slow to take the bait, continuing instead to propose developments mainly in Ventura’s east end.

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Six of the candidates--Morehouse, Smith, Brennan, Halter, De Paola and Monahan--strongly advocate more residential development downtown, while Osborn and Thompson see it as less important.

“I’m more concerned with commercial,” Osborn said. “It’s not high on my radar screen.”

Brennan believes there should be more incentives to attract developers. De Paola said the city should be more active in seeking them out. Halter called on the city to reduce regulations that might discourage them.

Monahan agreed, suggesting that the city might hold a one-day seminar for developers to tour the area and talk to city staff members. De Paola and Morehouse both stressed that there needs to be a mix in the types of new downtown housing, with everything from senior housing to upscale condominiums.

One of the challenges to bringing in residential development will be assembling sites large enough for developers to build on. Richardson said this may be the biggest challenge the council has faced downtown so far.

“There is not a lot of readily available land to build on downtown,” Richardson explained. “We are going to have to go through some complex transactions to assemble the property.”

Morehouse is making downtown revitalization a centerpiece of his campaign. At a League of Women Voters forum Wednesday night he unveiled a three-page outline of his plans for Ventura’s future.

“A revitalized downtown will provide the entire city with an economic engine that will produce the revenues needed to supply the services requested by the citizens,” he wrote.