Victoria plan moves forward
At the end of Monday's lengthy City Council meeting, the City Council unanimously approved the final draft for the Victoria Corridor Plan which will now be subject to environmental review prior to coming back in final form by the end of this year. The plan, which earlier evoked significant controversy, had widespread support from such disparate groups as the Chamber of Commerce and Livable Ventura. Having scrapped the option of revamping the streets eight lanes to create a more efficient traffic flow, the new plan envisions modest improvements over time to make the corridor more pedestrian- and transit-friendly. The main emphasis is to promote more first class office space to house the "high value, high wage jobs" that is the number one priority in the City's 2005 General Plan.
The headline in the VC Star focused on an aspect that while relatively minor in the scope of the plan, was the subject of the most debate:
The story pointed out that the Council's 6-1 vote to limit any single store to 100,000 total square feet would apply to any retailer, but it is the possibility that Walmart might replace the K-Mart on Victoria that evokes passion on both sides of the issue. The 2005 General Plan clearly called for "eliminating 'big box,' mega block auto-oriented strip developed and the traffic patterns it generates." By breaking large parcels into blocks no bigger than 300' by 300', the proposed Victoria code already limits the coverage of a building, but the 100,000 cap seeks to keep out the 'biggest' of the 'big boxes' on an already congested street.
Of course, Walmart has the option of simply reoccupying the soon-to-be-vacant K-Mart building or conform to the new proposed rules on building design and overall size.
While the plan encourages new commercial office development, a market study indicates that current market demand is modest. It will take active private and public marketing and commitment to encourage the growth of needed new jobs on Ventura's central corridor.
posted by Rick Cole at
2:27 PM
4 Comments:
A 100,000 s/f limit effectively blocks out Wal-Mart. You can come in but you have to be two-thirds the size of not just one but two Targets, Macy’s, Sears and JC Penny and half the size of Lowes. Why would we want Wal-Mart to inhabit a tired K-Mart, it obviously didn't work for K-Mart? The arrogance and ignorance of this is that we believe we know the best size for the largest company in the world. Wal-Mart’s only option is to inhabit a used building? That’s the expectations we set for our city? We have an opportunity to bring in a large retailer willing to invest into the city of Ventura now, who can offer competitive prices that allows us to allocate some of the saved money into improving other qualities of our lives? Yet we cling to the hope of bringing in some mysterious new business; “Amgen West County”, “Countrywide Buenaventura” that can bring in new jobs that benefit...people qualified to perform them that probably don’t live in the City of Ventura now. If that mysterious business can sell their services nationally or better yet internationally like Countrywide at its best or Amgen and then this same qualified people performing these mysterious TBD jobs spend their hard earned money back into our City, then yes, we’re on to something. Thing is, even if this were to happen, I’d still like to spend my money on competitively priced products that Wal-Mart can offer in the hopes I can spend the savings sending my daughter off to college or improving other qualities of my life. Let’s get over ourselves for a minute; we’re acting like Wal-Mart is a step down from K-Mart. Yes, by all means let’s woo these phantom companies with thousands of jobs to offer and millions of dollars coming in from all corners of the world. But let’s also make this about what we can do now for the city to spur economic growth. Other cities didn’t sell themselves out by bringing in Wal-Mart, other cities and their citizens got a pretty good deal on products they use. I can easily look up some rather nice cities who have a Wal-Mart; Laguna Niguel, La Quinta, Rancho Cucamonga, Brea, Cerritos, San Diego, etc. The site K-Mart was at could work for Wal-Mart and they’d give us a brand new building free of charge. You know what else? Our mall and where it’s located is great for commercial retail and big box players. Other cities would love to have an enclosed mall that’s two city blocks generating over $300 million in retail sales. Yet the city leadership wants a life style center there instead? They must have forgotten we have a downtown that could be a great “lifestyle” center. Simi Valley’s Town Center, Rancho Cucamonga’s Victoria Gardens, and yes Telegraph can’t create that history and energy that Main Street and the Missions are capable of. We have ocean front Southern California beach property nestled in between Malibu and Santa Barbara that millions of cities would love to have. Yet we do it injustice by situating the Ventura County fairgrounds right next to it. Let’s look at realistic ways to bring in resorts and attract the tourists for this valuable real estate. This is a master plan, but it needs to be multi-faceted and flexible to investors willing to enter into our city now. By the way, that spot you believe Ikea will one day go to, perfect for office space for TBD. If you can’t get someone filled in the old K-Mart building within a year, will you be willing to reexamine the restrictions you just imposed? When does blight become blight in our city leader’s eyes?
Let's see. We need more tax revenue, so we impose a fee on people that want to act civicaly and report crime, but we block efforts to bring a store into town that could potentially bring in $72,000 per day or more.
Has anyone noticed that the transition from the westbound Santa Paula Freeway to the southbound 101 is, in fact VICTORIA. It's a freeway interchange, folks. How do you "quiet" that down unless you talk Caltrans into finding another S/B freeway transition.
220,00 sq. ft. for the new Target and 90,000 for the existing one - that's 320,000 sg.ft. of one store in Ventura - it's not Walmart. Spare us the balony, Rick.
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