SIMI OFFICIALS TO TOUR SHOPPING CENTERS; VISITS TO PROVIDE ARCHITECTURAL PREVIEW OF WAL-MART PLAZA.

Byline: Douglas Clark Daily News Staff Writer

Rather than leave architectural details to the imagination, city officials will tour various Ventura County shopping plazas today to get a better idea of what a proposed $40 million retail center actually will look like.

The Wal-Mart Design Review Committee, which includes City Council and Planning Commission members, will meet today at 9 a.m. at City Hall, 2929 Tapo Canyon Road, before touring as many as eight sites.

``I don't want to just try and visualize this thing in my mind, I want to know what it will look like,'' said Robert Swoish, a Planning Commission member.

Swoish and other city officials met Thursday night with Stanley Rothbart, the developer of the 34.4-acre site located south of the Ronald Reagan Freeway and east of Madera Road that will include a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot.

The purpose of the review panel is to give Rothbart feedback before he officially presents his three-building plan to the Planning Commission on Sept. 17. The developer will meet with the panel for the last time Thursday.

While last Thursday's meeting focused on some high-profile issues, such as landscaping and architecture, Swoish said another less obvious issue also inspired debate - lighting.

Though many smaller shopping plazas in Simi Valley have lamp posts with a 20-foot height, the parking area for Rothbart's project is so enormous the number of lamp posts needed could be visually unattractive.

``Someone called it `pole pollution,' '' said Swoish. ``You can have a beautifully landscaped project, but if all you see is lamp posts . . .''

By using a taller lamp post, the number needed for the project could be reduced considerably. Therefore, Swoish said he will take a good look at the 30- and 40-foot lamp posts used at other shopping plazas.

For Mayor Greg Stratton, today's tour will bring a measure of reality to photographs and artist's renderings, which in his experience often take ``license'' in presenting projects.

``The tour will give us an idea of what can be done,'' he said. ``The purpose is to come back and offer the developer some more suggestions.''

The eight sites the committee could visit today include the Costco Store in Westlake Village, the Home Depot in Thousand Oaks, the Spanish Hills development in Camarillo, and The Promenade at Westlake shopping plaza in Thousand Oaks.

Though each of these projects can offer examples of architecture, Swoish said sites like The Promenade may not be worth seeing.

``It's an interesting center, but it's an altogether different purpose than the `big box' proposal here,'' he said.

In fact, camouflaging the overwhelming proportions of large retail stores is a goal of Rothbart's project.

Although both Swoish and Stratton said they generally were pleased with the project design, at Thursday's meeting each expressed concerns about the Home Depot design.

In particular, panel members were concerned that the Home Depot garden center also will be the storage area for unsightly bags of manure, cement and other building supplies.

Concern about the location of the store's entrance also has been expressed by other panel members.

``That area will need some kind of special screening,'' said Swoish.

Stratton said generally the problem with the Home Depot building is that the corporation would like it to look like all its other sites, whereas Simi Valley officials would prefer that it blend in with the general style of the plaza.