Downtown Ventura

Downtown Ventura is having an identity crisis. Actually, it’s been going on for several decades. Having once served as the core of Ventura County for government jobs, shopping and entertainment in the 1960s and decades prior, several unforeseen factors changed the dynamic. When new development came to the east side of town, Downtown Ventura was abandoned, forgotten like a distant relative stuck in a retirement home. It took nearly three decades for anyone to see the diamond in the rough.

The district has now come full circle. After receiving a heart-starting jolt of hope and vision, the potential to once again become the center of entertainment and shopping has been reinvigorated. With property owners and business owners investing a lot of time, energy and millions of dollars, Downtown Ventura is on the verge of being great. But it needs something more, something that will attract more people to visit and even live in the area. More residents, more visitors, more money being spent locally equals a more vibrant downtown.

“The downtown has seen a significant renaissance and has become a much more active city, more than it was a couple decades ago,” said Jeff Lambert, Ventura’s community development director. “But the downtown needs more — more housing, a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week environment, with more hotel stayers and office workers — to take downtown to its vision.”

Earlier this month, two developers presented two very different proposals to the city of Ventura to redevelop the city-owned parking lot behind the Century 10 movie theater between Chestnut and California streets. The projects are 1.) The Watermark Hotel and Residences, a mixed-use project with a five-story boutique hotel located on the corner of California and Main streets, with the Bank of America office and a SMART center on the first floor, and upper-scale rental housing on the city-owned lot, and 2.) The Terraces in Downtown Ventura, a mixed-use residential development of luxury condos, lofts, life/work spaces and townhouses on the city-owned lot. Both projects have included the same number of public parking spaces that would be lost with the redevelopment of the lot.

The city has remained mum on the proposals — officials simply haven’t had time to review them. But developers Harvey Champlin of the Watermark Hotel and Victor Georgino of The Terraces aren’t newcomers to this game. Both developers and their projects have complex histories and visions. One developer will have the right to fulfill his vision, or the city could possibly reject both proposals. And that right is completely contingent upon the city’s approval of either proposal and, in the case of the Watermark, whether or not one property owner is willing to negotiate. The real question is, does Downtown Ventura need more hotel rooms, housing or both?

First, a little history
Many, many moons ago, Downtown Ventura used to be a major hub of life and activity with the county courthouse located atop California Street in what is now Ventura’s City Hall, and the county government center in the building behind City Hall. In the 1940s and ’50s, the area was also a mega shopping corridor with JC Penney located in the building across from what is now Palermo, Woolworth’s in the Nicholby’s building, and Montgomery Ward in what is now the Century 10 movie theater.

If there was something to be done in Ventura County, Downtown Ventura was the place to be. With a booming oil industry right off Ventura Avenue, the district was in its heyday. But the oil fields began to dry up, and then came the shopping mall.

In 1965, the Buenaventura Plaza — now the Pacific View Mall — opened, and the big-name retailers that anchored Downtown Ventura moved away. The brand new $15 million mall, located on 58 acres in east Ventura, otherwise known as the outskirts back then, lured not only businesses, but customers, away from downtown.

The courthouse and government center followed suit in the ’70s and ’80s, relocating to the then brand new building off Victoria Avenue and Telephone Road. While the county Office of Education moved into the building where Montgomery Ward was formerly located, it left almost as quickly as it came. The Star Free Press and the local office of the Shell Oil Co. also moved out of downtown. The district, stripped of its identity, had only a few mom-and-pop stores left standing.

“Downtown Ventura lost its purpose,” said Nick Deitch, principal architect at Main Street Architects and a resident of Ventura since the 1980s. “For the last 30 years, downtown has been trying to reinvent and re-establish itself.”

Downtown Ventura has seen very little growth in the way of new construction from the ground up since 1961, when the Security First National Bank (now Bank of America) building on the corner of California and Main streets was built.

“The only interesting, good thing to happen for downtown was the Bank of America building,” said Stephen Schafer of the San Buenaventura Conservancy. “It was the last new building to be built. It was modern and great. Everyone loved it.”

Schafer said the visionaries of Ventura focused their efforts further inland, and it was not until the 1990s that stakeholders began looking toward downtown again.

Fourth time is a charm
You may have seen Victor Georgino around downtown. He is the man wearing the expensive pinstripe suit, pulling random weeds and picking up trash on the northeast side of the 500 block of East Main Street. He is compelled to do something many others would find humbling for two reasons: 1. Downtown Ventura looks better maintained, and 2. he owns the movie theatre block. (Although it may appear to be multiple buildings, it is, in fact, one building with storefronts made to look very different from each other, with the exception of the Bank of America building.)

The block wasn’t always that way, though. Georgino visited the area from Burbank in the mid 1990s, and saw a lot of potential for the district, despite the fact that it slightly resembled a ghost town. Having built or been involved with other mixed-use movie theater projects in Southern California, his vision was very similar for Downtown Ventura.

Though it was first suggested to anchor the downtown with a theater on the corner of Palm and Main streets, the final decision was to tear down the old and start from the ground up on the 500 block — with the exception of the Bank of America building.

“When I first came here in the mid 1990s, it wasn’t an area where you really wanted to be,” Georgino said. “It was not a friendly and inviting downtown, but now it has evolved into a wonderful destination.”

It took only nine months, from the time Georgino submitted the proposal, to gain the necessary approvals from the planning commission and the City Council in order to begin construction. One year and $5 million later, construction was complete with the opening date of the theater in October 1998.

The approval process and construction were done in record time, something that Georgino would not see happen again in Ventura. As a major stakeholder in Downtown Ventura, he wanted to continue to play a role in the area’s growth and overall improvement. Hence the reason he has repeatedly come to the city with proposals — four in all, in 2003, 2005, 2007 and now 2010 — to redevelop the public parking lot behind the theater complex.

“Ventura needs more quality housing — a 24-hour environment — that we don’t currently have here,” he said.

He said that the first three attempts failed for various reasons, including leadership changes at City Hall as well as nearby property owners who were unwilling to negotiate to terms reasonable for everyone. Because of difficulties in negotiating agreements between two other adjacent property owners — Bank of America on the corner, and Thomas and Beers, who owns the dirt lot behind the parking lot — Georgino has decided to focus specifically on a two-acre parcel with a willing owner, the city of Ventura. He has been met with many brick walls in the past, but said he feels the fourth time will be a charm.

His proposal, The Terraces in Downtown Ventura, is a green/eco-friendly, Mediterranean-style, mixed-use residential development, with 29 housing units, ranging from lofts and work/live spaces to town homes and condos. His project also calls for a fitness center, a conference center and a virtual office center. He projects that the various housing units will cost between $400,000 and $850,000. If his proposal is chosen by the city, it could take one to two years, depending on what the design review committee, the planning commission and the city want, to get it to the construction phase. From there, he said, it will take about three to five years to build. The estimated total project cost would be roughly $19 million.

A synergistic approach
For Harvey Champlin, when it comes to development, it is either go big or go home. While he is world-renowned for his commercial and hotel projects, including the Moscow International Center, the Los Sueños Marriott and Marina in Costa Rica and the Kona Village Resort in Hawaii, he is also known locally for the Soho Lofts, a condominium complex a few blocks north of East Main Street on Ventura Avenue.

But the philosophy of going big isn’t really about physical structures, it’s about ideas. And he has a rather big one for Downtown Ventura.

“Ventura’s been struggling for years on what it wants to be,” Champlin said. “All I recall is what [the city] doesn’t want to be. Ventura now has the opportunity to embrace the 21st century.”

While the downtown corridor is enjoying a new lease on life after being in the doldrums for several decades, Champlin sees a new and interesting future for the district. With a team of creative partners — including Mark Hartley, a large stakeholder in downtown and owner of the Watermark restaurant; Nick Deitch of Main Street Architects; and Michael McGuire, Champlin’s financial adviser — the sky is the limit.

The vision for The Watermark Hotel and Residences starts with a boutique hotel of 99 rooms, a main hub of activity connecting tourists and residents and utilizing all that the district has to offer. Unlike most hotels, Champlin sees it as a synergistic economic center, where, instead of providing guests and tenants with services and food exclusively from the hotel, there would be access to such amenities by the touch of a button from various downtown proprietors. The Watermark Hotel would contract with downtown businesses to offer guests an array of services and food.

The hotel would also feature a SMART center — an interactive, multimodal learning center and conference facility offering high-speed wireless to and from guest rooms, public spaces and satellite uplinks to enable real-time global conferencing, media events and remote art and entertainment venues, according to the proposal.

“One of the key components is the SMART center,” Hartley said. “It will be an incredible opportunity for a small boutique hotel to be involved in all kinds of entertainment, business and educational events.”

The SMART center could support many of Ventura’s art and cultural events including the film and music festivals, and art events. The SMART center, a Bank of America facility and approximately 3,600 square feet of commercial space would be located on the first floor.

Various outdoor amenities would also be included, such as a garden terrace, a lap pool, spa and a rooftop pergola for special events and gatherings. On the parking lot behind the movie theater, the proposal includes 83 apartments/lofts for rent.

While Champlin admits it has been a tumultuous time for hotel construction over the last several years, he thinks the pendulum is about to swing the other way, making this a perfect time to start working on such a project.

The cost of the Watermark (not to be confused with the existing Watermark on Main restaurant a block away on East Main Street) is estimated to be around $55 million, with a portion of the financing to come from Proposition 1C funding for strategic growth funds that facilitate or support infill housing construction. The project is expected to generate about $505,000 per year in transient occupancy tax and create 55 permanent jobs.

For the hotel to be built as planned, however, Bank of America’s involvement is critical, although not absolutely necessary. Champlin and associates have yet to negotiate a deal with the property owner, but Champlin said he believes it is all in the presentation for the bank to jump on board. But even if Bank of America declines to get involved, the plans could be modified so that the hotel could be built atop the bank building or where the parking lot is now. At this time, nothing is set in stone.

The proposals will be reviewed by city staff and will go before the City Council sometime in July, according to Lambert. The public will be able to weigh in on both projects during council meetings.

Lambert of the city of Ventura is optimistic about the proposal process this time around.

“The timing is good,” Lambert said. “Hopefully, one will get approved and the project can be built.”   

michael@vcreporter.com