City of Simi Valley Is Not Helping Local Businesses
The Future of Simi Valley Retail is under attack and round one will prove to be tough reality for Simi Valley as the Thousand Oaks Mall will again take shoppers away from local businesses. What is more concerning is the Westfield plans for Topanga Plaza and the Promenade. Westfiled plans to adjoin the two Malls with the property that is boarded by Ownesmouth, Topanga Canyon, Victory and Erwin. The proposed expansion will include a $750-million outdoor village including:
- A 300 room hotel
- 150 condominiums
- Apartments
- Offices
- 550,000 square feet of retail
Approximately 24 million people a year shop at the two malls and the expansion will bring an estimated 10 million more annually.
Over 6,000 jobs will be created and millions in sales tax revenue for the city of Los Angeles.
Something this exciting and this large will definitely draw shoppers out of Simi Valley and no matter how much our Chamber of Commerce and our City Council fight to convince Simi Valley residents to “Shop Simi Valley First”, these two modern and behemoth projects (TO & Westfield) that bookend our town cannot be willed away. This is like trying to hide and elephant under the living room carpet.
What can our city do to bolster the retail for Simi Valley?
No more rezoning or giving variances to properties to allow more retail shops.
This will stop diluting the revenues that our current business are so reliant on.
Work with residential developers to add units to our city within the guidelines of the city’s General Plan.
Our population numbers are too small to support the businesses we already have. While this is not a very popular move, our City Council should have thought more about how to support added businesses instead of being seduced by sales tax revenues; sorry but both population and sales tax are a function of each other. Simi Valley is not a destination town and when the Westfield project is complete, any fantasy by our City that we are, will vanish.
The good news is that I am not proposing to just build homes willy nilly, we have several developments on the horizon and now that the city has backed our businesses into a under preforming corner, it is time for them to step up to the plate and create an environment that will provide more opportunity for success. The future Westfield development and the Thousand Oaks Mall will never go away, but let’s give our local business owners a fighting chance to be healthy for years to come.
Ted, great article! Mind if I link to it and share some snippets on my site?
Mike,
Thanks for stopping by. Please do. You have a great site yourself!
http://www.votesimivalley.com
Great article Ted! When you run for office, I hope you’ll give me a post in the campaign. I’d run myself, but I be considered “mean-spirited” for telling liberals to kiss my you know what! HA HA
I no longer tell people I’m a Republican…. I’m now a conservative. Republicans (for the most part) are WUSSIES! I miss Ronald Regan!!
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the comments. Not sure if I’ll run for office ever, but most of us with our feet on the ground around here can see things as the really are.
Im all over new zoning for retail shops, let the strongest survive. It is very American.
I think its a non-issue though, Simi has strip mall vacancies out the wazoo, a poorly planned mall with 1 anchor tenant (at both ends of the mall! lol) and a selection of restaurants and stores that won’t be cohesive and drive traffic for their fellow tenants. That mall is the Simi version of Janss Marketplace in TO. I don’t think too many people will be looking to pump any new money into Simi anytime soon. I figure i’ll buy one of the smaller strip malls with the change in my couch cushions in 5-6 years. Just imagine if Countrywide actually ups and moves loan servicing and support out of the county, the amount of empty office space will dwarf all the empty retail space.
The State, city & county planners shouldn’t be thinking about retail or residential. Doing anything and everything in the world to woo businesses/jobs to relocate here should be the #1 priority. Unfortunately Texas thought of that about 10 years ago and the housing bubble just finished it off.
Thanks for the update on the business conditions in Simi Valley. Your city has it’s work cut out in the years ahead. That is some stiff competition form the other area retail districts.