Costco appears to have lost all interest in opening a store here

At the beginning of the year Costco Wholesale withdrew its application to build a store in Newbury Park. Since then the warehouse store hasn’t been in contact with the city.

In January, the proposed development of a 154,742-squarefoot Costco warehouse store with a gas station, parking and signage was taken off the agenda for a Thousand Oaks City Council meeting.

On Jan. 12, Costco director of real estate development Michael Okuma sent a letter to the city saying, “As you know, Costco does not own the subject site. Despite substantial efforts, we have been unable to finalize a lease for the site.”

The letter didn’t specify whether efforts to finalize the lease were ongoing or had stopped. At that time, the Costco agenda item was listed as postponed. Now it appears to have been canceled.

“There are no applications pending for that property, and no pre-applications requested, so it looks pretty dormant for the moment,” community development director John Prescott said.

Costco was expected to generate new jobs and about $600,000 to $750,000 a year in sales and gasoline tax revenue for the city, said city economic development manager Gary Wartik.

“The property is zoned C-3 (Community Shopping Center), which allows a variety of retail commercial uses, including junior department stores,” Prescott said.

Junior department stores are defined in the city’s municipal code as “retail stores intermediate in size between typical specialty retail stores and a full-line department store and carrying lines of merchandise mainly oriented to soft goods, such as apparel, with lesser merchandising of hard goods, such as appliances and furniture.”

Hard goods are allowed in the C-3 zone with a special use permit, Prescott said, adding that it’s possible a Wal-Mart could fit that classification, though he is not aware of any Wal-Mart interest.

According to recently published Community Attitude Survey results, 49 percent of respondents want additional stores in Thousand Oaks; 47 percent do not. Of those who do, 17 percent would like Costco or Big Lots, 15 percent want Target or Wal-Mart and 10 percent would like Home Depot or Lowe’s.

Target and Home Depot both have stores near what was the proposed Newbury Park Costco site.