Downtown Oxnard is the City’s historic heart and contains the highest intensity of community life in the region. Downtown is Oxnard’s traditional gathering place for festivals, events, and commercial activities, but the new edge-of-town freeway-oriented developments are a serious threat to Downtown’s long-term viability. The public charrette process that shaped these recommendations appeared to be a cathartic civic moment of which continue to build movement towards re-purposing, revitalizing, and reinvesting in Downtown. These recommendations are a series of simple yet innovative actions intended to allow bottom-up, community-led stewardship of Downtown’s revitalization.
Summary of Downtown’s Weaknesses
As noted in the What We’ve Heard section, the City has a number of challenges that need to be overcome if a successful implementation of the Oxnard Downtown Vision Plan is to take place. To recap, the biggest issues may be summarized as follows:
Stiff competition for the best retail, restaurants, and entertainment provided by The Collection shopping center, three miles to the north, and by Downtown Ventura, ten miles to the north west.
Not enough to do Downtown including insufficient restaurant and retailer variety, minimal entertainment, and a lack of cultural institutions.
Unappealing pedestrian experience due to the perception of crime, homelessness, too-narrow and hazardous sidewalks, insufficient lighting and wayfinding signage.
Poorly distributed parking: not enough in some areas; too much in others.
Average retail rents of $1.00 per s.f. gross are below the $2.25 per s.f. that is needed to support new retail development.
Unpredictable and even hostile investment environment partly due to past City regulations and actions.
Reduced street vitality and retailer viability due to lack of significant housing in the core.
Downtown’s distance (2.5 miles) from the Ventura Freeway and regional visitors.
Summary of Downtown’s Strengths
Downtown also has some significant strengths on which it can capitalize, including:
A legacy gridded/interconnected street network forming relatively small blocks that are an ideal size for pedestrian permeability.
Urban-form buildings throughout much of the Downtown core that support walkability and whose inherent modularity makes compatible modest-scale redevelopments in the adjacent gaps relatively easy.
Regional rail access via the Metrolink Station. Downtown is a coveted TOD (Transit-Oriented District)!
Many local stakeholders that wish to see improvement and may be willing to pitch-in with resources.
$6.1 million of “seed” money from redevelopment that can be leveraged to procure further investment from both public and private sectors.
