Merchants Split Over the Future of Downtown
Downtown, where upscale garden and decorating shops multiply and new restaurants seem to pop up weekly, a behind-the-scenes battle rages for the soul of Main Street.
Where thrift stores and junk shops once ruled, the questions loom: How upscale will this again-burgeoning strip get? Will Ventura become Santa Barbara? And, maybe most importantly: Who gets to decide?
Sparked by anger over the filming of the Warner Bros. movie “Swordfish” last month, a group of downtown merchants is talking about starting an organization to rival the Downtown Community Council, an advocacy group open to downtown merchants and residents. The store owners say they’ve been disenfranchised and aren’t getting the representation they want from the council, which they say is determined to get rid of the antique and thrift stores that still dominate the streetscape.
“The city is so divided, it’s unbelievable,” said Steve McGuire, owner of Heirloom Antiques Mall, who says he lost about $40,000 during filming. “It’s like a big battle zone down here.”
The Downtown Community Council’s president admits he’s under fire by one segment of the business community, but says he hopes the turmoil will bring his critics into the current organization rather than spur them to start a rival one that would pit antique shop against boutique.
“People fear change,” said Doug Halter, president of the 3-year-old organization. “It’s been a real struggle getting people excited that things can be better for themselves and their neighbors.”
The divide between the old guard and new has existed for years, but it’s widened since 1994, when the city began pumping $17 million into downtown redevelopment. It widened further during last month’s filming, when frustrations rose to the surface.
“There’s been a lot of dissension,” McGuire said. “Merchant against merchant. People hating the community council. We need a lot of restoration of relationships down here.”
For his part, Halter says he won’t run for community council president again, but will continue to be active in the group.
In an area that has long seen shops come and go, rents jumped skyward from historical lows in the early 1990s after redevelopment began, forcing longtime mom-and-pops to pack their bags.
The Lunch Box Cafe closed shop last year after 14 years in the same spot. The locally owned Daily Grind coffeehouse went down the drain. Even a wine-and-cheese shop found its rent too pricey and moved, allowing for expansion of Jonathan’s, the upscale eatery next door.
City officials and redevelopment boosters call the changes growing pains, and figure the market will ultimately sort things out as store owners who can’t afford to be downtown move elsewhere and a variety of new merchants settles in.
Meanwhile, they say, what difference does it make if a third Thai restaurant in as many blocks is about to open its doors?
“The more [restaurants], the better,” Halter said. A record 10 eateries opened downtown in the first three months of the year.
“There are people who live in this city who haven’t been downtown in 20 years,” said Halter, adding that more choices would draw them back.
Since the mid-1990s, officials have thrown money into the downtown core, planting palms along California and Main streets, laying brick inlay sidewalks and putting in more diagonal parking.
They’ve also built a $4-million parking garage and put up $6.5 million toward the 10-screen Century 10 movie theater.
To finance those projects, the City Council used redevelopment money, which is expected to be repaid through increased tax revenue. But for that to work, the tax base has to grow and property has to change hands.
City officials say the plan is paying off. In 1994, they projected tax growth of 4% by this point. Tax growth is actually 29%, said Alex Herrera, an associate planner with the city.
“The market itself has gone up,” he said. “Property values have gone up. The infrastructure the city has put in place has stimulated private development.”
But some of the downtown merchants say they have been ignored, and that the city only cares about bringing in new business, not keeping them happy.
“I swear they like stores that come in, spend a lot of money and then go bankrupt,” said Mike Clancy, owner of the Main Street Antique Mall.
He said that festivals and other attempts to draw people downtown only serve to muck up traffic, and that a proposal to draw merchants into a cooperative group that would ask them to contribute money for further improvements is unfair.
“It’s like Big Brother,” Clancy said. “It’s somebody making money.”
McGuire said the city and the downtown council push merchants to upgrade their buildings, but don’t give them incentives to do so.
David Kleitsch, the city’s economic development manager, pointed to a variety of loan programs set up to help merchants renovate their store facades, and said the city is set to begin a marketing program to advertise them.
But city officials admit that the tax growth doesn’t come from thrift stores.
The property is too valuable to justify that kind of user, said Susan Daluddung, Ventura’s community development director.
“I have a great faith in business,” she said. “We need more activity and more draw. One reason our tourism’s lagging is we don’t have the draw.”
One way to improve the area’s draw is to get more residents living downtown. City officials envision a European-inspired downtown of apartments, offices and stores: a place where people live, work and shop without having to get into their cars.
Two weeks ago, the City Council voted to smooth the way to sell 36 city-owned downtown properties that could be used for apartments.
City officials say developers are lining up to make proposals for parcels off Santa Clara Street owned by the Ventura Unified School District.
But one proposal already has drawn flak from neighbors. The so-called Triangle Project, on land bounded by San Jon Road, the railroad tracks and the Ventura Freeway, seemed to be the ideal complex for implementing the city’s vision. But it was met by catcalls from a group of residents fearful of losing their ocean views, and it has since been sent back to the drawing board by the Planning Commission.
Nonetheless, the city has set aside $25,000 for the Downtown Community Council to begin a series of workshops to start in January outlining just what downtown will become and how it can be done.
But before that happens, the rift--exacerbated by last month’s film shoot--is standing in the way of further progress.
“The people downtown are really a funny breed,” said Ron Smith, a former downtown shop owner who is close to the merchants who are unhappy with the council. “What people like to do downtown is get together and talk and talk and talk. . . . They don’t want to be taxed. They don’t want interfering in their business or telling them what to do.”
That’s why some merchants are counting on getting involved in the advocacy group that already exists.
For the most part, developers are not apologetic about the changes downtown, saying the city can support more upscale development, if only for the sake of variety.
Their message: It doesn’t matter who leads the downtown council. It’s the market that will take control. And as long as the economy sizzles, change is inevitable here.
“People in town say we don’t want Santa Barbara or Santa Monica,” said Ray Mulokas, whose company, MNM Construction, is building an office and apartment space across from City Hall. “But everybody wants the revenues those generate. And people want those facilities. These small mom-and-pops don’t do [downtown] justice.
“It is heresy [here], but it’s the facts of life,” he continued. “They’re not consumer-friendly. Thrift stores fill a need, but you need other elements, too.”
Developers say that any changes amount to improvements. The process is an evolution that will ultimately bring variety, not a downtown playground for the rich, they say.
“You have opportunities there, and the space to do something,” said Dick Fausset, developer of a new Victorian office building at the corner of Oak Street and Thompson Boulevard that is almost completely leased. “What’s wrong with quality development?”
But people know they have to be careful in a city where development--and even the name Santa Barbara--have sometimes been dirty words.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be Santa Barbara,” said developer Jeff Becker, who just finished renovating upscale apartments on Santa Clara Street. “We want to be Ventura.”
