It Takes a Community to Revitalize

First impressions are important and difficult to overcome--especially bad ones. I remember my first visit to Casa de Anza, the three-story building at the corner of Simpson Street and Ventura Avenue. It was built in 1929 to house employees of the then-robust oil industry and was the largest apartment and commercial building on “the Avenue.”

My tour was in early 1996, after the building had been closed down and cleared out. I remember gingerly picking my way through bags of trash, rotting food, discarded clothing, mail and children’s toys. Casa de Anza reflected all the negatives--chaos, neglect, fragmentation and the debris of broken lives--that many associate with its location, Ventura’s first and oldest neighborhood.

Later in 1996, the Westside Community Council completed an exhilarating process of creating a vision for the future of the Avenue or Westside. We chose Casa de Anza, a symbol of decline, and decided to transform it into a symbol of progress.

Buoyed by the city of Ventura’s adoption of our vision in early 1997, we approached the city to partner with the community to revitalize Casa de Anza. The city targeted federal Housing and Urban Development funding for the rehabilitation of the residences on the top two floors.

We needed an owner who shared our vision of what the building could be and found Dave and Donna Stewart of Ventura Properties Inc. The city Housing Authority lent tenant selection and management expertise. Mainstreet Architects worked with the Stewarts and the community to create a building that future tenants would love to call home.

We needed a vibrant entity to occupy the long-defunct bottom floor storefront. The Avenue Library was in dire need of more and better space. The Neel family, relatives of the Foster family (as in E.P. Foster), had offered to create a new Avenue Library adjacent to their housing development on northern Ventura Avenue. The Neels graciously agreed to support the library’s move to the more centrally located Casa de Anza.

We needed a grand facilitator to pull all the details together and we were fortunate to have Tom Figg, planning consultant to the city, negotiate the use of the library funds, bring in the Bank of Ventura to provide a construction loan and target community development block grant funds for the library’s lease.

Loretta McCarty and her staff at the city were invaluable in too many ways to count. The city’s Library Advisory Committee and the county Library Agency scrutinized the location and gave its blessing and learned advice. Alberta Word, Avenue Library head librarian, was a key player on the design team.

This weekend the Westside community and its many partners came together to celebrate the transformation of Casa de Anza.

We have all heard the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Well, we have learned that it takes a community to transform a building and the surrounding neighborhood. Buildings adjacent to Casa de Anza are already improving their facades and looking for new neighborhood-serving tenants.

Thanks to city leadership, dedicated city staff and spirited community involvement, the symbol of decline has become the symbol of progress, hope and a model for future Westside revitalization projects.