Camarillo Plan Puts New Face on Old Town

CAMARILLO — The company that helped breathe life back into the downtowns of Ventura and Fillmore unveiled a proposal Thursday night intended to do the same for Camarillo.

By evening’s end, officials with Mainstreet Architects & Planners appeared to have won over many in a skeptical crowd of about 50 merchants with their preliminary design for the 1.5-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard known as Old Town.

“I think you guys have done a great job of showing what can be done,” said flower store manager Gina Sanchez.

It was the first time business people along the thoroughfare had seen the plans to give the dowdy business district an estimated $5-million to $7-million face-lift since Mainstreet began soliciting ideas in March from the city and merchants.

The draft calls for slowing traffic between Carmen Drive and Lewis Road by giving motorists visual signals they have entered a pedestrian-oriented shopping district.

Possible ways to do that include such “traffic calming” techniques as adding stone welcome signs announcing “Old Town” on either end of the redevelopment area and reducing the boulevard from four lanes to two. In addition, decorative road tiles and wide medians filled with purple-blooming jacaranda trees could be installed.

Once people are enticed out of their cars, several elements to ensure a pleasant walking and shopping experience are proposed. The plans include wider, decorative sidewalks, a plaza and other gathering places and such architectural features as period street lights, wrought-iron benches and trash receptacles, as well as ornamental clocks and sculptures.

*

Finally, city grants of up to $12,000 will be available to revamp each store facade to transform the humdrum 1960s architecture into the kind of quaint, inviting buildings more befitting the Old Town name, officials said. That work could start almost immediately.

City officials and Mainstreet architect Dao Minh Doan said they are well aware of the magnitude of the task facing them. In somewhat of a contradiction, Doan’s job was to make something relatively new look old in order to renew it.

Unlike Ventura and Fillmore, this bedroom community of about 60,000 people--which was incorporated just 33 years ago--is not blessed with a well-defined retail core boasting aging buildings that need a restorative make-over to unleash their latent charming character.

“It’s not the traditional downtown,” acknowledged Bob Burrow, assistant planning director. “Most of it was developed in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s and it’s more of a linear district than a downtown.”

The stretch of largely one-story buildings resembles a strip mall that hopscotches erratically from one side of the street to the other and overlooks the Ventura Freeway. Cars zoom along the boulevard on their way to the nearby Camarillo Factory Stores outlet mall or freeway onramps.

Despite the clutch of antique stores that has gravitated to the street in recent years, the planners said there is little feeling of place or purpose and in the evening the street is deserted.

“There’s no sense it’s a cohesive district,” Doan said. “It is a very challenging job in the sense we do not have a lot of old buildings we can rely on.”

*

Making the job even more complicated is the fact the nearby Fulton Street bridge is slated to be replaced by the turn of the century with on and offramps connecting the freeway to Lewis Road, otherwise known as California 34. That will send rushing vehicles zipping along the south end of the boulevard.

The idea is for the district to complement the nearby outlet mall rather than compete with it, Doan said. To that end, the city has also hired a second consultant to draw up an economic feasibility study that’s due in September to provide a clearer picture of the best uses for the area.

However, some property owners are already making plans based on the pending redevelopment.

Boulevard building owner John Nash was surprised that municipal officials were willing to consider allowing him to build second-story apartments above the retail stores in his building.

“I couldn’t believe that the city is receptive right off the bat,” he said, adding that such mixed use is not allowed.

Once Mainstreet refines the ideas it presented Thursday night based on merchants’ feedback, the proposal is expected to go before the Citizens Advisory Committee Aug. 14.

The City Council could approve the plan as soon as Aug. 27, but any construction is probably years away, officials said.

“This is a beginning,” said building owner Art Mooney. “It’s something to kick around.”