High Hopes

As a location manager for “Diagnosis Murder,” James Tadevic’s job is to scope out affordable places to shoot--a location, for example, that resembles an out-of-the-way seaside town for a recently filmed episode of the TV mystery show.

Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Playa del Rey were too crowded and expensive. Finally he settled on High Street in landlocked Moorpark.

Once bustling, the city’s former business center now is quiet enough to resemble the sleepiest of small towns. Over the years, business on this pepper-tree-lined street has moved south onto New Los Angeles Avenue, and rarely do more than a handful of pedestrians stroll by.

“This worked out ideally,” said Tadevic, who plans to splice Malibu scenes into the episode to give Moorpark a beach. “I thought I could probably do this without disrupting too many businesses. . . . This section is still a sleepy bedroom community.” While the absence of activity on High Street may work well for Tadevic, it’s bad news for those who hope to revitalize the area.

A number of merchants in the old downtown are skeptical that the city--which has conducted study after study and formed committee after committee to plan that revitalization--will ever go beyond talk.

Discussion of the most recent plan, a $1.6-million revamp proposed last year by San Luis Obispo-based RRM Design Group, stalled recently while the city grappled with other issues, such as the 3,221-home Hidden Creek Ranch development and restrictive growth measures. The council is scheduled to examine the downtown plan again on Wednesday.

“The city can do it if they had the will and the desire,” said Colin Velazquez, who owns a carpet store on Moorpark Avenue at the end of High Street. He served on one of the committees more than a decade ago to discuss downtown revitalization. “All I hear from the city is lip service. They just lack the direction.”

While many have hopes that the old downtown can be revived, merchants, experts and city officials also acknowledge a number of barriers to bringing businesses and people back to the street.

A Common Problem Among Main Streets

Does Moorpark have a realistic chance of revitalizing its downtown?

“It’s a tough question,” said urban planning expert Bill Fulton of Ventura. “I think what’s confronted Moorpark is similar to what’s confronted downtown main streets all across the country.”

Gone is the bank, post office, tea shop and ice-cream parlor on High Street.

The prominent Red River Steak & Fish House recently went out of business--providing the opportunity for Tadevic to convert it into a mock bed-and-breakfast for his television episode, but depriving the street of a much-needed business.

The Moorpark Playhouse, one of the town’s few unique attractions, is struggling financially after a theatrical company that operated it went out of business.

“I only live a mile and a half away, and people don’t know where High Street is,” said Rifat Hijaz, whose family-owned Mayflower Market & Liquor has been on High Street for 23 years.

The city’s downtown plan calls for rezoning areas on High Street and surrounding streets, such as Moorpark Avenue, Charles Street and Magnolia Street. The plan envisions attracting medical, dental and other business and professional offices as well as bed-and-breakfast inns, art galleries and cafes.

It also calls for creating a more inviting atmosphere by installing bike lanes, encouraging businesses to have outdoor seating, creating areas for foot traffic and adding planters. The plan suggests that merchants spruce up storefronts by painting, dressing up windows and doors, and adding plants and lighting.

Yet the small size of Moorpark’s downtown may prove challenging for the revitalization plan, Fulton said.

“Successful downtowns usually have a bigger, stronger base of buildings, and they usually have more than one street--and so that suggests that just using the existing buildings may not be enough,” he said.

“I like downtown Moorpark,” Fulton said. “I wish they could do well. I think it’s a tough one, since they are left with no economic base on High Street except Metrolink and City Hall around the corner.”

Moving City Hall to High Street could help, he suggested. Or planners may want to create a niche of specialty shops, he said.

Downtown Ventura developed into a place for antique shops and secondhand stores. But that evolved on its own, and “that’s a hard formula for governments to try and predict and create,” he said.

Supporters Frustrated by Years of Talk

Keith Millhouse, a member of the city’s Planning Commission, believes High Street would benefit from more housing nearby. That, he said, could happen if the city followed through on a plan to rezone areas around High Street to create more apartments, senior housing and condominiums.

The city also must form aggressive partnerships with businesses and could even find a developer who would have a vested interest in reviving downtown, Millhouse said.

The City Council “must approach potential developers and give them a lot of unfettered discretion on what to do,” he said. “It’s not going to work if we say, ‘Let’s take two years and talk about it until we’re blue in the face and take another six months to talk about it and find someone to talk to for another year and a half.’

“And that’s the frustration with the government process. It takes too long, and that’s what’s really hurting the businesses on High Street.”

After years of talks at the committee level, the city in 1989 commissioned a study by the Newport Beach-based Planning Center. Six years later, the city hired RRM Design Group to expand on the earlier plan. The city may again consider further studies to figure out what types of businesses could be attracted to High Street and how to implement the downtown plan.

High Street merchant Velazquez said such studies are a waste of time. “We already know what’s wrong with High Street,” he said.

More housing is needed in the north end of the city to bring people downtown, he said. He also believes it is unrealistic to attempt to make Moorpark a unique destination.

Ojai has its arts community, Ventura has the beaches and thrift stores--but what does Moorpark offer?

“It’s not Solvang, or a unique beach community,” he said. “It has nothing to offer except a few old buildings.” The city is not built on tourism. It has doesn’t even have a single hotel.

What the city needs to do, he said, is to resist expansion of the commercial corridor that has taken off on New Los Angeles Avenue.

Ever since Caltrans completed a connector road to California 23 and California 118 in 1993, traffic has been funneled onto New Los Angeles Avenue where zoning has often been changed to allow it.

“If you were a developer and you had a million dollars, would you go to High Street or Los Angeles Avenue?” he asked. “It’s a no-brainer: You go to New Los Angeles Avenue.”

In addition, a number of merchants suggested the city provide low-interest loans to help High Street business owners spruce up their buildings.

There is no money set aside for the revitalization plan. City officials say it is likely that small-business loans up to $25,000 will be available for merchants who apply to improve their storefronts.

A number of merchants wonder whether High Street will be helped or hurt if Hidden Creek Ranch, the massive housing development proposed for an area adjoining the city, is built. The project, under which Moorpark would annex the development area, could increase the city’s population by one-third.

Some see it as a way to provide more customers to visit High Street, but others worry that commercial elements of Hidden Creek will take even more business away.

After all, many residents of Mountain Meadows, a relatively new development with more than 2,000 homes, have their own shopping center on Tierra Rejada Road.

“You have to find more reasons to go there,” Fulton said. “Simply plopping people there won’t cause them to go to High Street.”

Councilman John Wozniak suggests that officials study the plan and revise it as needed.

He admits that he has no assurance that High Street will thrive again.

But, he said, “I do believe--in my heart--it can happen.”