City OKs Project for Arts Plaza

Despite opposition from some residents, the City Council voted 3 to 0 to let Santa Monica-based Caruso Affiliated Holdings develop the east side of the Civic Arts Plaza.

Councilman Dan Del Campo, on a trip to Italy and unable to vote at Tuesday’s meeting, wrote a letter in support of the agreement. Councilwoman Linda Parks said she abstained because of her concerns over traffic and accompanying pollution.

The vote brings to the civic center a retail and commercial center of up to 190,000 square feet, including restaurants, offices, a multiscreen cinema with stadium seating and a 1.1-acre pond that can be frozen for ice skating.

Construction on the 7 1/2-acre project is scheduled to start by year’s end and be completed within 12 months.

Most of the 60 residents who spoke at the council meeting on the project supported it. Proponents say it will make Thousand Oaks Boulevard a magnet for residents and provide a resource for the Ventura County Discovery Center, to be built between the commercial center and the Civic Arts Plaza.

“I always felt the city lacked a heart. I feel this provides the heart the city needs,” resident Raul Gutierrez told the council.

Other residents and business owners expressed concern about the city’s financial arrangement with the developer.

“This is a giveaway of taxpayers’ money,” said Paul Burns, owner of Burns-Pacific Construction on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. “There’s no guarantee that the Discovery Center will be built.”

But Mary Anne Isaac, the center’s executive director, said the Discovery Center needs the partnership of the Caruso project to succeed.

The deal approved by council members requires the city’s Redevelopment Agency to spend $12.2 million and lease the land to Caruso for 55 years.

It also gives the developer the option to buy the land for $2 million at any time.

Parks said she couldn’t support the project because it gives away taxpayer dollars without benefiting the city.

“I feel like a kid in a candy store. I want a pond. I want to ice skate out there. God knows I want a Discovery Center and I want to put money toward that,” Parks said. “What I’ve heard is a lot of public support for the eastside project. I really think that support is for the Discovery Center.”