Oxnard Factory Outlet Gets New Owner, New Outlook
After a decade of failing fortunes, the former Oxnard Factory Outlet has been sold to a Thousand Oaks developer who plans to spend at least $2.5 million refurbishing the mostly vacant shopping venue.
Silagi Development and Management Inc., which closed escrow last month on the 14-acre center, plans a new name -- the Palms -- and a major face-lift for the outdoor discount mall: tile roofs and new facades in Mediterranean styles, a different paint scheme, enhanced walkways, tropical landscaping with palm trees, an entertainment plaza and a six-story clock tower.
“To compensate for not having an anchor tenant, we are going to go overboard with a design and spending the money to introduce a family-oriented center,” said Moshe Silagi, whose company has constructed mid-sized office buildings and industrial parks in Southern California since 1985.
A 45-foot tower near the outdoor plaza, with a fountain or other water feature, will be the site of regular outdoor concerts, he said.
Tonight, the City Council is expected to formally terminate its 1992 agreement with the original owner to allow for rezoning and development of the new complex.
“I’d say it will be a fairly dramatic refurbishing” from the corrugated metal roofs and farm-agricultural theme of the current center, said Brian Pendleton, Oxnard’s redevelopment service manager.
“What Mr. Silagi and his development company plan to do is basically a two-phased rehabilitation of the property, both in terms of the physical aspects of it and also in terms of beginning to remarket the center.”
When Silagi Development, doing business as Pacific West Corporate Center II, receives final city approval of its plans, the company wants to immediately renovate 100,000 square feet in two buildings at the center, Pendleton said.
The second phase of renovation will be at an existing food court area and will probably begin by early 2005, “as soon as I figure out what I want to do,” Silagi said.
The nearly 150,000-square-foot mall, which opened in 1994 and cost a reported $16 million to build, faces the Ventura Freeway between Rice and Rose avenues. Early tenants included Benetton, Geoffrey Beene and the Gap. Now one of the largest tenants is a Sit & Sleep mattress store.
The center is only 25% occupied, said Silagi, who declined to reveal how much he paid in the acquisition other than to say he got a discounted price.
Silagi said his company either owns or is creating retail projects in Agoura Hills, Camarillo, Ontario, Oxnard, Redlands, Riverside, Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks and Westlake. He also owns the 80,000-square-foot Covina Ponds center in West Covina and the 45,000-square-foot Montclair Towers in the San Bernardino County city of Montclair.
Less than a year after the Oxnard center opened, Camarillo Premium Outlets debuted five miles south and soon became much more popular with shoppers. While the Oxnard site lost tenants and business, the Camarillo center attracted high-end retailers and expanded to more than 120 stores.
Nancy Lindholm, president and chief executive of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce, said she was excited about the changes planned for the shopping center.
But Lindholm said the new owner must create an ideal mix of retailers and properly market the center to ensure success.
“I’m not sure that apparel or clothing would work because of the draw that Camarillo has right down the street,” she said. “It would have to be more unique.”
