Santa Paula Hopes to Sell City Hall
Hoping to increase Santa Paula’s sales tax base, the City Council is looking at selling the downtown City Hall site to a Malibu developer for use as a commercial center.
The council voted unanimously Monday to continue negotiations with New Group LLC, which is interested in the block-square civic center site.
The property, about four acres bounded by Harvard Street on the south, Ventura Street on the north, 10th Street on the east and Mill Street on the west, is still being appraised, said Vice Mayor Mary Ann Krause.
“But it’s very valuable because its orientation can be changed, so it faces the freeway,” she said. The city owns about three acres of the site; the rest is owned by individuals.
City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said the developer wanted to make the primary tenant a grocery store. The current City Hall is a 1950s-era cinderblock building with no historic value, Bobkiewicz said. The city has yet to identify a new City Hall site, but the civic center will remain downtown, he said.
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