Group Floats Idea of Aquarium for Ventura Harbor

Ventura Harbor is being considered as the possible site for an aquarium as part of a broader effort to establish the biggest marine education and visitor center between Monterey and Los Angeles, according to officials.

The plan calls for building an aquarium and marine learning center adjacent to Channel Islands National Park headquarters, where federal officials are already working with community groups to build a children’s environmental education center.

Proponents say a 40,000-square-foot aquarium could attract 500,000 visitors annually. The Santa Barbara Channel Foundation, a nonprofit ocean-awareness group, is searching for a new home for the project after withdrawing it for consideration in Santa Barbara.

Details of the plan are sketchy and officials emphasize efforts to find a Ventura home for the facility are in a preliminary stage. Key questions, including how much it would cost and who would pay for it, must first be resolved.

Nevertheless, the Ventura Port District board is scheduled to consider on Thursday whether to enter into an agreement with the foundation to develop a plan to locate the facility at the end of Spinnaker Drive. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at 1603 Anchors Way Drive in Ventura.

Edward G. Wohlenberg, general manager of the port district, said he believes an aquarium would be good for business and would help promote Ventura and the Channel Islands.

Officials at Channel Islands park have met with the foundation to explore ways to jointly develop the project, Wohlenberg’s letter to his board states. About 300,000 people visit the park’s interpretive center annually, providing a potentially strong and steady flow of visitors to an aquarium, officials say.

“If you have a feature that complements the park, that’s something that interests the park,” said park Supt. Tim Setnicka. He added the park service wants to study the proposal in more detail before making a decision.

Originally, the foundation was working with Santa Barbara officials to build an aquarium, hotel and shopping plaza near the waterfront, said Dave Davies, community development director for Santa Barbara. But the plan ran afoul of citizens who feared it would attract too many tourists and merchants who worried it would draw away customers from the city’s commercial center. The foundation withdrew its proposal on Oct. 8 after five years of planning and $1.5 million spent for studies and plans.

John Cahill, executive director of the foundation, said the aquarium could generate enough revenue to pay for its operation and construction. He said donations and private bond underwriters could finance the project without public funds.

“There’s a lot of interest in the marine environment. An aquarium could help bring that to the forefront very effectively,” Cahill said.

But Davies said that when his staff in Santa Barbara penciled out the figures for the aquarium, they came up with a different picture. For example, he said, the estimated admission charge of $16 to $18 would be too much for many families to pay.

“We did a financial analysis of their project and found that the whole thing was marginal at best,” Davies said. “Our studies showed that a lot of their projections, like attendance, revenue and the like, was over-inflated.”

Aquariums are sprouting across the country, not just in coastal cities but in Colorado, Tennessee and Kentucky and other parts of the nation’s interior.

“There’s a zillion aquariums being built right now,” said Michele Nachum, spokeswoman for the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, which opened in June and is expected to attract 1.8 million visitors annually. They are attractive for families, for schools and business leaders who see profits in tourism, she said.

But they are not a sure bet, and after great fanfare when they open, attendance can precipitously drop off, as one did in New Jersey and another in Florida.

California has seven major aquariums, including Aquarium of the Pacific, Monterey and the Birch Aquarium near La Jolla. The aquarium proposed for Ventura would be smaller than those, and Cahill said it would focus on the Channel Islands and Southern California coast.