OLD TOWN
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More than 40 years ago, when Caltrans was planning the route of the Ventura Freeway, the state's traffic engineers wanted to bypass Camarillo -- then a community of only a few thousand -- by building the freeway south of the existing town.
Fearful that local businesses would be bypassed as well, the local Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of plowing the freeway through the center of town instead. Contrary to the freeway experience elsewhere in the state, Caltrans lost, the locals won, and the town was sliced in two. |
But things didn't turn out quite the way the Chamber of Commerce had expected. As the rest of Camarillo prospered, Old Town struggled. Through the ‘60s, '70s and 80’s new development was primarily focused on the areas north of the freeway. This was where new contemporary retail centers were being built, with more parking and larger stores, ready to serve an expanding population. Meanwhile during this period, the Old Town area was stagnating due to the aging of structures, comparatively smaller lots and insufficient parking. Over time, the Ventura Boulevard/Old Town corridor became home to a variety of smaller businesses which had difficulty competing with the larger retailers north of the freeway.
By the mid 1990’s it was becoming apparent that the Old Town corridor was facing the prospect of ever increasing deterioration along with higher vacancies and lower lease rates. To counteract this downward trend, city leaders came to the rescue forming a redevelopment agency in June of 1996. The redevelopment agency, known as the Camarillo Community Development Commission (CDC) was authorized having a project area of approximately 1,020 acres and included three phases, the first of which would be the Old Town corridor followed by an aging industrial area and an older commercial north of the 101 Freeway.
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